How am I?

It seems to me the planet is heating up on every level. All and every unresolved issue I’ve ever had has come knocking, and correlates with the horror and beauty happening in the world. The absolute devastating injustice and corruption in the United States government, which I know has been here all along, is hitting new heights, informing my every day consciousness. I pray and act (as constantly as I can) to be a body/vehicle/organism for healing, transformation, speaking out, change, action, truth, LOVE, and that means all my darkest corners need attention.

I know I will always be a work in progress.
I know I can only do what I can do.
I know I can’t work alone and I must work in community.
I know that facing my own trauma is my best tool for becoming effective for others.
I know that LOVE is who I am.
I know that LOVE is possible in every situation, even in the face of horror.

I feel like telling you about all the good work I am doing, because I feel like defending myself, because I feel like I’m not doing enough.

I feel like explaining why the things I do matter because I am so scared they don’t.

I DO know that my ability to love is growing exponentially. I don’t say this to defend myself (do I?).

I had a dream last night that there was a terrible accident and I found a baby in the wreckage that everyone thought was dead but she wasn’t. I held her and fed her and she perked right up and had this huge smile on her face. She took my love in totally and was full of joy. I woke up wondering who the baby was to me. Was it me? Was it a universal baby? Was it hope? I think it was hope. I think the baby was hope.

I am currently facing parts of me that have hatred. They are directly connected to getting hurt and losing faith in people. Losing faith in my parents, specifically, but then it radiates outward into my view of humanity. And then humanity looks terrible and validates my hate.

This hatred is born from profound powerlessness. From being hated. That’s how it goes. I was hated as a child and I came to know what hatred is. I wish it weren’t so.

So now my partner is asking me to look at this place inside me where I can’t let him in. Where I can’t see him. I have my own wall there, the fortress that kept me safe. I’m not really aware of it most of the time. I’m so loving and giving (my image of myself) that I can’t see the place that is utterly frozen. So that’s what I’m sitting with now. The wall.

I saw a picture of Trump’s wall being built the other day and I felt a scream come forth. N0000000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That wall hurts so much. It’s so wrong.

I’m starting with taking down my own wall and working outwards.

It’s really a hard thing to do and I need lots of help and support to even CONSIDER taking down a section of my own wall.

I have really good reasons for my wall. It would really freak you out if I told you how the walls got built. It’s so very violent.

And YET, it’s time to take some bits of it down because I want to be close with my partner and my child and most of all myself. When I’m behind my unconscious wall, I am alone and don’t even know it. That just won’t do.

My awareness around racism and sexism is now constant. I see it and hear it everywhere, all the time. I see it in my parenting and my community, in my language, in my choices, in my loved ones, in those who are battling out front, and those who are quietly suffering. It is built into my constant deconstruction and unconscious reconstruction of my internal walls.
So I’m literally sitting down with my hatred and terror and hanging out with it. Taking a good look. A good feel (very hard to do!) Maybe the baby in the dream was me. I thought she was dead but she’s not.

I’m holding her and telling her that I love her and that it’s not her fault.

And the more love I have for that frozen child, the more love I have for every frozen child. The child inside each adult. All the out-casted, broken beings waiting to be held.

I’m one of them.