Back sooner than usual. That's the thing about nearing 63 (augh!) is that you realize it's now or never. If it's on my mind, I'm signing in and writing. Whether I have two tomorrows or thirty-two tomorrows is anyone's guess, so there's no reason to put things off. Today, I'm going to completely finish the collage I have been working on, on the same principle.
Monday's blog got me thinking. What kept me going all these years, long after I realized I didn't believe in any of our institutions and couldn't function within them? What kept me going once I realized I was "new paradigm/new paradigm" and was so hopelessly untethered to the old paradigm? What kept me going when I saw (or sensed) the deep fear basis of the construct around me and I knew I didn't want to be part of it? I mean, it sure as heck would have been a lot easier to throw myself into the frigid lake, or fall into addiction, or just compromise for the sake of having security. But I didn't. I remember back in the 90's, being in tears on the floor of my new but empty apartment just feet from Lake Superior, trying to imagine how I could keep going. And even then, I knew I wasn't doing it for me, I was doing it for the sake of women in the future who might try to self-actualize outside the mostly male construct, and try to create a new one. Yet I've always believed in a world that reflects both male and female powers (what Riane Eisler calls "partnership"). I don't want to turn everything on its head and erase men's input. It's just that it has been hard to even identify my own instincts, except as an 180 degree contrast to what is out there.
Someone from my background may be the last person to be qualified to speak about what love is, but if I've learned nothing else in 62 years, it is what love "isn't." It isn't war, terrorism, hatred, wealth extremes, borders, limitations...you get the picture. As to what it "is," I think that's the thing. None of us, myself included, can even imagine the complete joy, acceptance, beauty, and unconditionality of divine love. We cannot imagine being loved to our core. We cannot imagine every being on the planet being loved to their core. It is so powerful, it is terrifying. So we keep falling back into the old fear paradigm. Yeah, I do too, every other second. In a sense, it is far easier than believing we may be truly worthy of love.
So, what is keeping me going now, heading into 63? Sure, partly the hope that my life experience will help someone else carve out the future. But partly, purely selfishly, the hope that I will finally find my tribe, my home, my love-based platform. It's the belief that I didn't get this far just to fizzle out. It's the belief that the only path forward, today, is doing something I love, and that little iota of love will spread out exponentially. It's the belief that what I love, matters. It's the tiny little baby step toward loving myself as I believe I am loved on the divine plane.
