It’s been a while since I have shared in this space. It was not an intentional hiatus, though I don’t put myself on any formal schedule in how I post here. I want my sharing to be organic and to track with what is happening in my life, or what I may be processing in real time. But I also don’t want to become stagnant and dependent on only posting “when I feel like it.”

Lately it just hasn’t felt natural to post anything. Not that I haven’t been writing, but when I write the enrgy is not there to share in the moment. I feel almost reluctant to even check in here. As if the space is condemning me for not being active, and the voices of doubt start. Saying that I’m going to just quit this and abandon this space; and questioning why it is I’m even doing this.

The reluctance I was feeling came through more clearly i the form of a question: For whom am I doing this, and why?

When I started I felt very clear of the answer to both of those questions. The who was whoever would find their way to this space, and the why was because I sharing my experiences and all I’ve learned and grown through, would be of benifit to others, and possibly create a community for continued growth and conversation. I use the word reluctance, but as I write this I’m reminded of Stephen Pressfield and his philosophy of “resistance.” Of it being the entity that comes in and activates these feelings that divert us and make us question the thing we are doing.

But I can’t say it is that alone. I think I’ve written before of feeling the need for stillness and quiet; this too I believe has been a factor. I have needed this time to hear more clearly what wants to come through and needs to be offered up. I continue to be inspired by things I hear, and from contemplative thought. So today I find myself drawn to this space, and the urge to put some thoughts out.

There are new things developing even as I type this, but I’m going to start with past writings, some started two years ago that weren’t completed, recently unpacked and updated. I don’t know if I am still in the same place energetically as when I first started composing these, but I still feel some resonance with the words and sentiment. And they’re as much for those who will read them as they were for me, so I want to give them as offering.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way.

As you will read in the text, I starting writing this near the begining of the pandemic, and how it was inspired.

Primal Scream

I’m walking for my lunch break, passing the employee parking lot. The route is lined with signs: We love you Healthcare workers; you are our heroes; thank you; we appreciate you. There is a box beneath each message, the name of the person or persons who purchased the signs from a local trophy and awards shop. The proceeds will be donated to Second Harvest to help feed all those in due to job and school closures.

It is April 14^th 2020, the year of Covid 19.

A week ago, when these signs first appeared I gasped and smiled in pleasure and gratitude. Touched by how the community was responding. This visual demonstration of how we care for one another. Today as I pass by; this thing welled inside, or maybe wailed is a more accurate term.

 Something inside of me wanted to scream; long and loud enough for the world to hear; and stop, and take notice. I wanted to scream until I had everyone’s attention. But I didn’t feel like it would just be my scream, I felt the world needed to let out this primal scream. To release this energy that has no description. That I can feel flowing within me, and seems to be connected to everyone else. Because it feels too big to just be my own.

A primal scream to tear away this civilized, domesticated veneer that we’ve mantled ourselves in. That keeps us from being truly free and able to connect. With ourself, each other, and our natural connection to this planet. If we could all just let out the one primal scream together, then we could begin to see clearly. See how everything we experience is a choice. Either by our own mental story, or as a casualty of someone else’s that needed to pull in a supporting cast to give their story more depth. I don’t know where the story started, but since the first word, in the first line, in the first act, we’ve all been picked up as characters playing parts. Who were we before the story, before we thought we had to have a story? When we could just be. When all was required was that you experience the world and let it teach you. Let it guide you into your true self.

 Yes, there were those who had come before you, and they helped you navigate the world. But not in the form of dictating, but exposing and encouraging you. At what point did someone feel their way had to be everyone’s way? Because theirs was the best and right way of a thing. When if you tried something different, you were mocked and ridiculed, instead of being appreciated and accepted. So that first syllable was uttered, that first word was formed, that first line was writ, and the play began. And that is when the scream was born.

Now we are so entrenched in the script and production, we no longer notice the cameras. We just hear our cue, find our mark, and say our line. But with each show the words get more and more stale. The performance more moot, and the delivery less and less believable.

But in us is still that original time; the truth of who and what we were, who we are. Their collective story. Told by someone; who had been told by the one before. Who was told by another from before; and so on, back to the original time.

Some never forgot. Some we’re muted, told that how they lived was wrong and there was a better way. Why be happy living with less, when you can be miserable and chase happy trying to obtain more? That in order to have more, someone else would have to have less. Otherwise, how can you judge happiness. Those people are worth less, so we can use them to get more. This land is worth less, how can we strip it and extract its wealth?

We no longer had reverence for the land, or appreciation of it as a gift. That it was a product of Divine perfect design, and held all we needed to thrive and be nourished. We are not above the natural flow of nature, but we think we are because we have removed ourselves from it. We have put ourselves in boxes and nature is kept outside and away from us. We are taking the being out of human being.

There are ways to get back to living as a true natural human being. There must be better ways than what we are doing and we must make the decision to return. Because we see every day how we are losing more and more the natural nature part of us, and becoming more identified or recognized as machines and mechanisms. How do we change this? It is a choice. It is that simple. It is a choice that we can make, especially those who are in positions where they have the privilege, the ability, the autonomy, and agency to choose.

You have to make the choice for those who are not in those positions. The more choices you make to make changes that will affect all, the more we will be free to have better choices. It has to stop being: I, me, mine, and become: we, our, us, all. What is it that I can do that will benefit my sister, my brother; these other people who I do not know, have never met, and never will? Because when one of us is supported, it makes it easier for all of us to be supported. We think we are in lack because we have been programmed and conditioned to think that more is not enough and enough is less than. We think we are in lack because we have been taught that to have means to waste, to overuse, to over consume, and to want more of a thing just because it exists.

 How many things do you own that if they did not exist you would not need them? And I don’t mean you wouldn’t have them; I mean you wouldn’t need them. What do you own that you don’t need? How many items do you have that you have buried in a closet, in the back of a cabinet, in a pantry and you’ve never seen it since you bought it? How much do we throw away because we end up not using it and now it is no longer valuable or good? We have been turned into a means to an end for those who we have decided should be idolized, admired, and envied because of their ability to hoard money.

And make no mistake, it is hoarding. Living a beautiful, abundant, joyous, satisfying life does not mean you have to spend exorbitant amounts of money. It does not mean you have to be afraid that without this money and these material things you will not have enough. We have become lost, we have become separated; from being, from each other, from being a part of the whole that is existence. We are not here to conquer nature, to conquer life. We are here as part of it, we are it. We came here to have the experience of living. Living a life made full and whole through questions, and discovery. By experiencing wonder and awe. Let’s find our way back to reverence and appreciation, that we may move forward with a sense of connection to the miraculous.