I offer these reflections from the depths of myself. They are born from my call to write about the nature of the reality that I live and feel. I hope that they may bring some inspiration to those that are called to engage them.
What I call myself is but a locus in the midst of our holistic reality while earthy beings. I can find comfort in such locus (or not) but I feel bound to it. I can take refuge in it when needed and recover my own pulse and breath, my own rhythmic experience. It is a realm of my own, a speck in the midst of life on Earth but a whole and unique world too.
But I am holistic, so I am I but not only I. I am I, I am you, I am the other, I am the wholeness of us all.
I am I but I also can expand and reach you, and the others, and every other being. While expanding I can feel joy and pain, passion and numbness, and more. All those experiences of all the different loci are there for anyone to feel, to engage. We can call this capacity empathy even psychic ability. But the truth is that this is inherent to being an earthy being, an individual human in our case.
Some individuals hold this capacity as it is: a natural part of them. Some individuals are aware of the impact and possibilities of this capacity, and some are not even aware that they hold it. In our times and culture, due to the compartmentalizing and alienating nature of it, most individuals never grew such capacity, and hold it in atrophy. And some others, get lost from their own locus and into the vast realm of the other, alive or dead, human or not. Getting lost from one’s locus is mostly caused by deep trauma that makes the self an almost impossible place to inhabit and less to recover one’s pulse and breath.
Being as it may, as holistic beings we need to be our own self but that of the others too. We belong to each other. But we belong to each other in freedom and respect. That is one of the most amazing paradoxes of our holistic nature.
We belong to each other in freedom and respect. How to navigate that?
If we were not as impoverished as we are in our current times and culture, we would not even ask that question. We would just embody the multitude of answers to it. But in our state the question and answers to it arise mostly from a place of fear and wounding and alienation. Such answers do not have to do with freedom neither with respect. They are related to control, manipulation, and alienation.
To navigate our impoverished state we find individuals that devote themselves to helping others or to bridge the world of the living with the one of death. At least they find comfort in such professional areas and they can help others to become more whole again. We find individuals that withdraw from the busy world of human interaction and devote themselves to a passion of their own that it is offered to others and that enriches them too. We find many other cases of individuals that are actively looking for both, belonging and freedom.
But for most individuals the default responses to the capacity of expand their own locus of identity is related to fear, control, and alienation. Fear if someone can reach into me or if I can reach into someone (even though I need it too), need for control in front of such fear (control of myself or the other), alienation as a way to exert such control (alienation of myself, or the other, or both). If there is fear, most likely freedom and respect are going to fade away.
If we live alienated from our own true holistic, dynamic self, how can I navigate diversity and change? How can I expand myself and meet others in their own ever-changing uniqueness? How can I meet others in their true experiences of joy and pain, in their passions, in their alienations? How can I be you if I am not even I?
I need to be me to expand and belong, and I need to belong and expand to be me. All in freedom and respect. How?
The simple answer: By coming back to your first heartbeat and your first breath, to your first truth, the one that you were born as and with, to the first rhythm of the incarnated truth that you are. It is there where all the answers that we look for are.
The difficult process: To get to that place, silence and trust are needed. To bring the answers back, to manifest them, an organic process of growing them from the seeds that we hold in such place, is needed.
Silence: Disengaging from an alienated self and its alienated responses.
Trust: Disengaging from the default response of fear that sets in motion control and alienation.
But how, where, and when can we do that? My self it may be alienated, but it is mine, it is where I belong, it is where I feel safe. Right? Where do you want me to go? It sounds like I have to go back to my mother’s womb. It does not make sense. Right?
Nope: not right, not right.
If your self is alienated, you do not belong there and you do not feel safe there. It is an illusion to be able to live in alienation. It is not true for your true self. It is not even yours, it does not belong to you, but you belong to it, it is a prison and you are the prisoner.
You do not have to go back to your mother’s womb, not in reality, not energetically, not in any other way. You have to reach the core of your true incarnated self. It is always with you, it is you, it holds your truth, it holds all the seeds that you can grow in your lifetime and more, it even holds seeds for others.
But what about my current life, my family, my people?
Well, if all that they are built upon, or relating to, is your alienated self, you better quiet the chit chatter of your alienated self so they have a better opportunity to become quieter themselves and get closer to their own truth, which is a shared one.
Do you mean that I better become a monk and remove myself from the world and my people?
Nope. I mean you better quiet the noise of the alienated self and reality to better feel the true rhythm of your true self and that of others. Then dance it, sing it, bringing beauty and joy to the world and seeding it with new seeds to be grown that honor the continuous process of the incarnation of spirit.
Die to your chit chatter, to the cajolement of your abstracted alienated self to be reborn into the truth and beauty of your own holistic, incarnated self. And then set yourself free, nurture yourself, and witness the greatest greatness of them all.
Anything that is an alienation of our true holistic nature is an illusion, an enchantment, a spell, one of very destructive and impoverishing consequences. It substitutes a reality that should be nothing but the holistic and dynamic incarnation of spirit for a reality that becomes alienated from spirit and devoid of truth. Alienation removes us from freedom, belonging, trust, and much more. Alienation sets in motion all sorts of dynamics and constructs that are based on fear, separation, imprisonment, abuse, and much more.
When alienated and living in an alienated world, our hunger for truth becomes so deep that it thrusts us into the deepest despair and dissatisfaction. There is nothing but coming back to a place of truth that would calm us. But lost as we are, in most cases we will push forward into the alienated ways that we are imprisoned in. We will create even more noise, and dissatisfaction and despair. That is for us and for others.
We do not realize that the answer lies in stopping the push forward and starting to let go of everything. That is the way to come back, disengage to gravitate back to your true self and that of others. Silence, to find your true voice and that of others.
It is said that this reality is but an illusion to be avoided. We say that this reality is an illusion when it is created and engaged from a place of alienation and lack of alignment with our deepest truth that is the Truth in a unique form, a unique rhythm.
It is said that this reality is not worth living. We say that this reality is not worth living and it is even unhealthy to live it when it is engaged and created from a place of alienation and lack of alignment. But gravitate to your true self and to that of others, dance it, sing it, grow its seeds, share them! And you’ll find yourself in the midst of a dynamic holistic experience worth living and full of meaning. You will not be able to tell where you start and where you end, who are you and who are you not, if you are alive or dead, if you are human or you are divine. You will be you and you will be all. You will share your joy and pain and commune with that of others, all in one single heartbeat and breath.
Me, the other, the world: all different, all one and the same, coexisting in freedom and respect, all incarnating spirit while on Earth.