I guess it's a function of my age that my main source of information about what is happening in the world is still the network news. Probably most people under about 60 rarely watch it...and I learn a lot from the TV shows I still watch (more on that in a moment) and the ads in between. Computers are not my "go to", and I have a non-smart phone. I am slowly but surely making myself even more irrelevant, yet I like myself more as time goes on and I guess that's a higher priority.
Anyway, battlegrounds. This morning's are various midterm primaries, fights against COVID and monkey pox, Ukraine, and saber-rattling elsewhere in the world, just to name a few. I've been talking about my increasing sensitivity to all this fighting, be it real, symbolic, entertainment, or in my face on the streets. Yes, even in Duluth. Is it just me? I expected that as more unified energies started to infuse the world, more conflict would come to the surface, but the reality of it is genuinely hard for the heart to take.
Life being a mirror, I came to terms recently with how hard I have fought my whole life, just to survive. This is not the "fight" of loving violence, or trying to gain power over others, or the warrior spirit. This is the fight of starting out at the bottom of a family black hole, and trying to claw my way out. This is the fight of being a seed planted too far beneath the surface and trying to make it to the light. This is the fight of knowing the infrastructure in place cannot support the kind of person I am, yet knocking on doors and writing letters and generally making a fuss trying to be seen or heard. It wasn't a fight to "win". I just believe deep down that I am valid, and that I have the right to exist as the person I am. I fought to stay true to myself, not to change myself to fit the conflict-driven norm. It's not really a subtle distinction, but I need to acknowledge the fighting I have done, and, like all fighting, it did not send pure loving energy out into the Universe. So, yes, I've even had it with that relatively low level of conflict. More and more, I am just sinking into the flow of the Goddess as best I can, and letting that stream take me. I know there is no reality to "death", so I don't need to fight for my life any more. I am in Her stream, and somehow, in ways I don't understand, I will be better off being a tree branch floating downriver than being used as a stick to beat down doors.
But one more confession. What is the hardest thing to release in my own battleground mentality? I still love the original "Law and Order". I love it when "Ben Stone" (or "Jack McCoy") goes at it in the courtroom (modern battlefield) and roundly beats the "bad guy". There is still just enough of that good vs. evil in me, my own inner lawyer, my own inner pioneering attorney grandmother, to thrill at a case well argued -- and won. I know that leaving the duality paradigm will be a blow to most forms of entertainment, literature, even music, dance, and poetry. Conflict is such an underpinning to everything, even the arts. What will we do without it? That's for another day, another blog post.
