Last week has to have been one of the most trying/traumatizing ever, at least from the standpoint of looking outward. The spread of fear, hatred, disease...I had both got the "news" of it through the medium of TV, and sought relief there as well, unsuccessfully. Scanning the cable channels, I rarely found anything that was not a thriller, a crime show, or a movie about war or a future apocalypse. (Gosh, what is it that people don't get about the law of attraction?!) Even my old fallback, The Great British Baking Show, is competitive at its core, only more gently so.
My whole life, it seems, I have been emotionally at arm's length from a family I didn't understand, an ocean away from the music and place I love, a gender away from being able to sing that music, and looking through plate glass at institutions and conflicts that make no sense. I am sure I have been derided for not doing a better job of engaging, and considered ill, myself, because I don't function well in "reality." I guess I have said it before -- I have felt so apart, and frankly, so lonely.
This morning, I saw a reference (with photos) to the battlefields of World War One. I felt my usual, dizzy sense of otherness, not understanding on any level why wars are fought, or the desire to kill people in battle or otherwise. I feel chronically distanced from every manifestation of separation and conflict, whether political, social, economic, health, or religious. When I try to live a life referencing these world "realities," I feel untethered, as if I am tumbling through space. Talk about homeless.
Then inexplicably, for a short "aha" moment, the "otherness" of the world didn't matter. For one moment, all that mattered was my "is"-ness. My truth, my vision, my artistry and musicianship, my honest efforts to stand up every day in a sea of what feels like insanity. This feeling of groundedness keeps trying to slip away, but I'm holding on.
I believe that one or two hundred years from now, the only human life that will still exist on this planet will be that which is primarily "about" love/compassion/support/beauty/harmony/truth/passion/vitality/joy. Resistance to these things will just fall away. No grand battle. Enough people will simply grow tired of conflict and not engage in it, in any form. Hatred of other people and the earth will dissipate into the mist, as people stop even hearing "calls to arms" and "fighting words." Our energy ripples will be too high to even hear those sounds.
We artists and musicians have always "gotten it." Yellow isn't put on the canvas to fight blue. Altos are not in the choir to fight basses. Sometimes there is dissonance, but it's resolved, not killed off.
Oh to hold onto this for one more moment.
