“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” ~Elie Wiesel
It can be difficult to follow the current political news, much less act on it. So much of what is happening now is crazy and scary. I try to hold this quote from Elie Wiesel (above) close to my heart.
Sometimes I have powerful negative feelings bubble up when I see what’s happening in America today. I feel deep fear and anger and even hate at times. That’s ok. Those too are normal human emotions. It’s all spiritual grist for the mill – even the crazy ugly stuff.
Denying or stuffing my negative reactions to the news doesn’t help anyone. Denial ties me up in knots. I lose my ability to act. But if I can allow myself the space to feel whatever I’m feeling about the chaos around me, no matter how uncomfortable, I come out the other side stronger and clearer and more capable of acting from a space of love and compassion.
THIS. This is the antidote to all the bigotry, hatred and fear in America right now. Thank you Chameli. ❤️
The moment you take a stand for what really matters to you, you step into Sankalpa Shakti, a current of infinite creativity and energy. By committing to what matters to you and stepping two feet in, you access the very power needed to live out your Sankalpa.
So what keeps us sitting on the fence?
I have witnessed in myself and in my practice sisters how we minimize the value of our path and our wisdom when we cannot find confirmation from the outside; how we are still waiting for approval, comparing the fresh kiss of spirit that we are offered in the intimacy of our own practice with the outdated models of spirit embodied by men only. We are still moving in circles, repeating the past.
We tend to avoid that one scary step outside the circle of the known, into the rush of self-arising wisdom expressed through us. Are we secretly hoping that someone else will do it for us?
~ Chameli Devi Ardagh
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Chameli’s recent TED Talk, The Fierce Face of the Feminine:
The Republican candidate for President is in trouble for his sexist behavior again. An old tape has surfaced. On the tape, Trump can be heard bragging about how he can grope any woman he wants. He boasts that he is rich, so he can simply grab women “by the pussy.”
When women across America express their disgust and outrage, Trump dismisses his comments as “locker room talk.” According to him, what he said was no big deal – “just words, people.” Trump claims lots of men talk like this. And the most bizarre part? Many men (and even some women) in this country agree with Trump and dismiss his vile comments as simply dirty talk.
1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. Assaulted… But grabbing women by the pussy is apparently no big deal to a lot of people. And if a woman objects to Trump’s comments? Well, she is simply “overreacting.”
Kelly Oxford knows better. She was quite disturbed by Trump’s comments. So she went on Twitter last Friday night and asked women to tweet to her about the first time they were assaulted. “They aren’t just stats. I’ll go first: Old man on city bus grabs my ‘pussy’ and smiles at me, I’m 12,” she wrote. By the next day, Oxford was receiving a flood of first-person accounts of sexual assaults. And by Monday afternoon, nearly 27 million people had responded or visited Oxford’s Twitter page.
(Source: NY Times article by Jonathan Mahler, For Many Women, Trump’s ‘Locker Room Talk’ Brings Memories of Abuse)
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What is a woman to do in the face of this endless stream of sexist abuse? How will this ever stop? And what do I tell my daughter?
Anyone who reads my blog, knows that I am a big proponent of love. I write often about the healing power of love. But what can love do in the face of this aggressive sexist behavior? And what is the best response a woman like me can make in this situation? These are the questions I have been chewing on for the past few days.
Here is where I am at today: Yes, we absolutely need to come from a place of love — this world desperately needs more love. But we must love ourselves first.
We must love ourselves from a place of POWER — a place where we stop minimizing ourselves by apologizing for our own needs, feelings, and opinions. We must love ourselves deeply, and own our power. Then, and only then, will we stop allowing other people to trivialize us.
We matter. Our needs, feelings and opinions matter. It is time for us to embrace how wise and powerful and important we truly are to the world.
Our time has come. We must not be silent any longer. It is time for us to stand up and say NO MORE! This crap is NOT OK. It is time for us to stand in our power and say NO to this type of bullshit. And you know what else? This is exactly what will change the world – woman after woman standing in her power and speaking her truth.
Can we love ourselves enough to stand in our power and DEMAND honor and respect? It is time. We must do this, for ourselves, and for each other.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
~Dalai Lama
I have been sitting still, watching and listening, for decades. Writers are natural observers and I am no exception. I love watching people and events from the sidelines. But in the past few weeks, it has become more and more difficult for me to simply sit still and observe.
I have been watching and listening for months as Donald Trump encourages his followers to act from a place of hatred and rage. In the beginning, Mr. Trump seemed like a bad joke – a blowhard reality TV star runs for president, really?! But now he has managed to become the Republican nominee for President of the United States, and this ridiculous political side show just got very very scary.
I want to run screaming into the street and stop cars. I want to ask everyone I meet if they have listened carefully to what Mr. Trump says in speech after speech. I want to insist that they follow me home to my living room where I can show them clip after clip of Trump gleefully inciting hatred and racism and divisions between people. And I want to remind them of what McCarthy and other peddlers of hate have done to our country in the past. I want to beg people to not let that happen again.
But I won’t do that. I won’t run into the street and stop strangers. I would be labeled crazy. I won’t make people sit still, watch and LISTEN to what Donald Trump has been saying for months. I wish I could but I cannot.
What I can do is express my deep fear about what Donald Trump may do if he becomes our President. I can voice my concerns to family and friends, and to you, my readers. I can tell you how disturbed I am by all the vitriol and fear that Mr. Trump is selling.
I believe that love is always the answer. And sometimes love requires that we stand up and shout NO, this is NOT OK! Sometime love requires that we step out of our comfort zone and enter the fray.
Mr. Trump’s vision of America is NOT my vision. He does NOT speak for me or the Americans I know and love.
Polite silence is not the answer. Sitting still is not the answer. So I am standing up and shouting NO! every chance I get. I am telling family and friends exactly what I have observed in this man who wants to be my president. And I am doing it in the name of love and unity and compassion.
I hope you will stand up and join me.
“Trump came one breath short of advocating a police state tonight (it is not an accident that David Duke tweeted such great applause)… I pray the better angels of America will rise up and dissolve all the hatred that was spewed into our body politic tonight.”
Today in the car, this song came on and I got the chills – literally! Apparently, it was precisely what I needed to hear. Which song? It was Love’s Divine by Seal, who is one of my favorite mystic songwriters:
Then the rainstorm came, over me And I felt my spirit break I had lost all of my, belief you see And realized my mistake But time threw a prayer, to me And all around me became still
I need love, love’s divine Please forgive me now I see that I’ve been blind Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name
Through the rainstorm came sanctuary And I felt my spirit fly I had found all of my reality I realize what it takes
‘Cause I need love, love’s divine Please forgive me now I see that I’ve been blind Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name
Oh I, don’t bend (don’t bend), don’t break (don’t break) Show me how to live and promise me you won’t forsake ‘Cause love can help me know my name
Well I try to say there’s nothing wrong But inside I felt me lying all along But the message here was plain to see Believe me
‘Cause I need love, love’s divine Please forgive me now I see that I’ve been blind Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name
Oh I, don’t bend (don’t bend), don’t break (don’t break) Show me how to live and promise me you won’t forsake ‘Cause love can help me know my name
“The problem in America isn’t just that hate is speaking so loudly; it’s that love is speaking too softly.”
~Marianne Williamson.
I am not responsible for other people’s happiness or healing, I am not responsible for their problems or pain. And yet every interaction I have with another person can be healing or hurtful depending on how I choose to be with that person.
Am I open hearted and authentic? Am I distracted and disinterested? Am I mean and hateful? I chose. And what I choose affects my entire world.
We ‘do’ so much to get praise, we ‘do’ to distract ourselves, we ‘do’ to convince ourselves of our own worth – if only we could relax and just BE! Just BE our big beautiful selves in this moment. Stop trying to get somewhere else or be someone different. Just BE.
The cosmic joke is that all our pushing and striving to accomplish so much matters far less than how kind we are to other people – and to ourselves. But we’re so busy pushing to finish our to-do list that we lose sight of basic love and kindness. We don’t have time to be kind, we’re too busy to stop and open our hearts. In the process of hurrying towards our next goal, we strip our lives of what truly matters.
Love is the Force that Binds the Universe Together. Love is the Source of all Things. Love is God. God is Love.
It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea, How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare, How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes Or toes. How soles of feet know Where they’re supposed to be. I’ve been thinking about the patience Of ordinary things, how clothes Wait respectfully in closets And soap dries quietly in the dish, And towels drink the wet From the skin of the back. And the lovely repetition of stairs. And what is more generous than a window?
