You know the value of every article of merchandise, but if you don’t know the value of your own soul, it’s all foolishness. -Rumi
As I ponder the current situation of the world, I ride the space between two worlds: the fear and sorrow of loss, and the wonderment of the gift to create a new world with all we have discovered. Deciding what to carry on this journey reminds me very much of the gospel admonishment made by Jesus, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” The idea of the “camel’s gate” is an ancient one. When the darkness of night fell around the walled city, the main gate closed, and a small passage was the only way to get back inside. This action prevented being attacked by large armies in the night.
In my experience, each time this quote was read, it was interpreted to mean that material possessions often get in the way in our lives. It alluded to being lost in an artificial sense of who we show up to be in the world–what I have and what I do is who I am. It is about believing in specialness and separation from each other. It is why sometimes we race around to make sure we have what we need without regard to what may be available for others. It is the disease of always needing more. We are familiar with this idea–that the hunger for more possessions can cause problems in our lives in a myriad of ways, including our current global climate, political, and economic challenges.
Yet, in a profound sense, this quote speaks to being disconnected from the realm of consciousness. What do we hold in our minds? We can’t carry both fear and love any more than we can be in two places at once. Emotional baggage can block our connection with one another, as well as to health and healing. Our emotions of despair, hatred, and anger have been scientifically proven to lower our immunity and can shorten our lives and well-being. Piling on the hurts and pains from past woundings to the point that we relive them, again and again, makes it impossible for healing to take place. We can’t get through the portal. We carry too many burdens.
In the last few years, I have been rebuilding my life from a place of defeat and despair after so much loss to find a space of healing and forgiveness. I have spent many hours meditating, asking my spirit to heal not only my heart and my mind but my body because I know stress strains our systems. Holistically, I have been examining my “burdens” one by one to release them to a place where I could be lighter. Finally, I am coming to the place of transformation. The sadness is literally changing form to be a gift. What is left is a strength of knowing in my spirit. There is always expansion within no matter what happens, and I can arise from the ashes to still be of service. It is a process that slowly emerges just as sure as the bulb breaks through the soil to be a blossom.
This time of going inside is not just about getting away from the risk of spreading disease, while that is incredibly important to preserve the health of everyone. The larger question that seems to arise for me is, what kind of thoughts are we bearing? What ideas are in our minds? What burdens are we still carrying that perhaps need to be unloaded? Cleaning and organizing our space is a spiritual act that allows us to make harmony in our homes. But as we do that outer work, we also need to do the inner work of observing where our minds spend their time and energy. Energy creates things even when we are not aware. When we have too much of our minds outside, there is nothing left to fuel us inside. In certain tribes, the native Elders greet one another, “how are your connections?” This question is posed to you today. How are your connections to the people, spaces, and things in your outer world, and more importantly, to the spirit inside you?
Aside from being a pandemic in the outer realm, this situation is a call to take action for our inner health and knowing. It is an invitation to explore the thoughts and emotions we carry day to day. An incredible book that explains in-depth how this will improve our health is Dr. Joe Dispenza’s Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon, and there are many sources out there with similar messages. We are as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin genuinely expressed, “not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” It is our ability to be both human and divine that is being called into service today…to dance in both worlds of the inner and outer life to find a balance.
These are times of great transition and change. Because we are wired to our routines and modes of being, change can be incredibly uncomfortable. It is alarming to realize that some of our freedoms have been suspended without knowing when this will end, many of us are currently without income, and we hear every day, more people are sick and dying. It is impossible for any of us to feel grateful and inspired all of the time. Our frustration and anger can be tools for expansion, but we can’t stay in that space forever. It does damage when we do.
Sometimes we can’t do it alone. That is why we need our connections with each other in whatever ways we can safely achieve them. We also need to reconnect with our inner wisdom, which will guide us through the valley of darkness so we can unload our burdens and come through the portal to full healing. It is there for every one of us. If there was any lesson that I learned through my experiences, the most powerful one was this–every moment of every day of our lives, we can create the world of our dreams. We have to be willing to release the things and ideas of separation and fear, and to ask the question, how may I genuinely serve in manifesting it? Just imagine the world we will create!
photo credit: Vince Moro, outside of Pézenas, France. Fall 2019.