Safety

in an unsafe world

Like a sweet old lady I am going to tell this story again to ally the meatier content as it’s worth hearing a few different ways for a few new lessons and laughs- which we could all use…

~I was three days into my India journey, blurry eyed and disoriented from the massive life change I just initiated, when I lined up for darshan with Amma. It was my first encounter with the hugging saint. I was filled with expectations that I was told I was not supposed to have if I wanted to access the love I was seeking. I was ready to take my bundle of big important pain stories to her altar and finally receive the blessing and healing I had been seeking.

Darshan is a whole scene. The moment devotees line up, Amma’s alchemy is at work. People pushing in front of one another to get a hug token. Anxiety, chaos, entitlement, impatience, conflict- the inner child’s fear of being fed are all stirred up, derailing all spiritual aptitude. Goodbye meditation practice when in the darshan line. That hug determines everything. I must get my hug or else -I am not safe, loved, worthy.

How one approaches Amma is how one approaches life.

I finally arrived at her feet at 1am after sitting in the queue for hours. I was aggressively situated in her arms by her impatient swamis, as there is a particular way to turn the head and lean in to her rose scented bosom. It feels like everything is a test, everything is being watched and washed clean at all times in her presence.

I leaned in and immediately began to cry from my head. Do you know what I mean? It’s a bitter kind of cry, a self pity kind of cry “Amma it has been so hard.”. I was expecting full compassion, redemption. Instead...

…she pushed me off of her. Yep. God just swatted me away like a little house fly.

My head spun, my heart clamped shut, my palms sweat and my mouth dried up like I had been struck by dry lightning. There was a cry for help thrashing deep inside my body but there was no one to turn to in the 2000 unfamiliar faces all buzzing around the ashram. Nowhere was safe and I was as far away from home as humanly possible in all ways. The whole earth shifted under my feet and all I could do was act cool because I didn’t want anyone to see that I had failed darshan.

Immediately all of my talking heads flared up and it was a cacophony of:

“See there is no help for you, get over yourself, you don’t need anyone, I guess what is for others is not for you, not even God loves you, I guess I don’t deserve to heal, best keep seeking, who is she anyhow, you thought you were special -and on and on.”

The shame in me made plans to flee the next day. I will show her!

Around 4am I was drenched in dread and the feeling of complete loss of self, when a sliver of radiant love slipped through on one of my prayers. It showered light on the depth of rejection and abandonment pain I had been carrying all of my life in a way that opened my heart to feel it with immense compassion, and I all of sudden got the hug I was seeking. I felt safe in Her arms although they were no longer around me.

She knew I was ready to face my deepest fears, that I had done the work to endure the cleansing she initiated. Her light stirred all the noise living inside of me to the surface. She did not reject me, she rejected the old story I brought to her feet in a way that simultaneously bathed it in compassion. I immediately knew I was in the presence of pure mastery and wept tears of gratitude. I stayed at the ashram for the winter and became a devotee.

I have received unimaginable grace that hasn’t always looked like grace at first glance. My entire time in the ashram she never answered the questions I took up to her as I watched her answer everyone else’s questions- harumph. Through lots of surrender and deep listening, I realized that it wasn’t to punish or dismiss me, but to reinforce my inner authority, intuition and sense of center, or safety. She was teaching me what I asked her to teach me, the lessons I had been seeking for years.

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CURIOUS

That first hug is still working on me as I walk with some questions on safety:

How do I feel safe in an ever shifting landscape, a “dying” society and planet?

Where do I resource my sense of stability from as I dance between self sufficiency, the desire for healthy human connection and my reliance upon the Earth to feed this body?

As the Earth prepares herself to do what SHE needs, will I feel rejected and abandoned by Life as resources diminish? Or can I breathe into that deeper well for a sustenance that will guide me through this in some semblance of Peace, even if my body lays to rest in the process?

How do I belong to and align with my communities without getting seduced into ANY hive mind- even the good kind? Because at the end of the day it’s all a bundle of coagulated ideas formed from current reality- that will inevitably change.

What do I trust within me? Is this guidance, fear or old patterns disguising themselves as a seemingly good thing as they like to do?

As a woman, how do I lean into protection from the masculine, from a man or men, while not expecting them to make me feel safe? Where is that line? Are these ideas archaic or needing reclamation in a way that heals the masculine/feminine wound?

Can I be quiet, listen and take 108 breaths into my own well of wisdom before I reach out to other resources? And what is the motivation behind either the withdrawing into self or reaching to other? Understanding this is where the gold lies.

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SAFETY vs. PROTECTION

There is a difference between the physical protection one would get from a parent as a small child, or strength in numbers and joint forces that come with community and partnerships -and the emotional safety that allows the heart to rest at night no matter the circumstances.

We can attempt to create safe conditions. There can be true physical protection which can ally the emotional body’s sense of safety, but it is up to me whether or not I feel safe within them. Only I can let the Love through that heals the long standing worries and fears that most often have little to do with the present moment- yet are constantly triggered by current external events and other’s behaviors.

There are things we can only do alone and there are things we can only do with one another.

Yet, if I can only find safety in God when I am alone then that is not safety. If I can only find solace in the validation, acceptance and reflections of others, that is also not safety.

The safety I speak of is about an emotional and spiritual safety that helps us endure the inevitable physical positions we will find ourselves in (often daily) as humans that threaten our safety. Or, more often our sense of comfort as we are no longer being threatened by wild elephants stomping our camp at night.

It’s why indigenous cultures exposed the child to many relationships to support their growth, taught them survival skills and sent them out into the wild with no food, water or another human for miles to learn about where their resource truly comes from at the end of the day. They sent them out to die to learn that they never can and thus orient themselves to a much larger family of unconditional love and wisdom which provides a sense of safety that no human can.

When we find a greater sense of safety in something wider and wiser than the habits and relationships we cling to for safety, we will inevitably stop choosing to consume people and products to fill a gap where God and the wisdom of the ever turning Circle are meant to be.

The great anxiety on the planet plaguing our nervous systems is asking us to review safety as all that we were seduced into believing provides safety is crumbling. All of our little addictions and identities that provide some illusion of safety are being exposed for what they are and what they are covering up- or trying to protect. Ya know- big old feelings that were never felt, ego stuff.

The crumbling will force us to become community minded again- become Aquarian. We will have to resource our neighbors, love our neighbors as we love ourselves, in order to physically survive and form layers of protection and resilience.

To do this in a way that doesn’t cannibalize us, where we don’t eat each other up as the anxiety builds, we must step into the expanded consciousness that everything is another me/you/us and resource our own personal relationship with Life. That consciousness can often (only) be discovered on our solo soul journeys where we face our deepest fears, and inevitably reclaim our unique connection with the Divine.

We will never feel safe if we are fighting anything. What is it that you fight each day? Love, God, another human, what’s happening on the planet- yourself? Need a hug? I get it.

I do believe with all of my heart we can hold one another in ways that help the inner child heal and come to her vibrant awareness of all that she is. Mature and conscious relationships and communities can hold the paradox that we have abandoned child parts that will need tending while we stand in our own true, perfect nature that is forever healed and whole.

I know that the wounded human dance is a gift as it often turns us toward seeking something truly stable so we can then dance with one another in a way that enlivens, reflects and expands what creates and provides innate safety. Dance break… (I couldn’t help myself)

But in the end it is NOT the job of the community or partner to make me feel safe, or bring peace to my life, or I will forever be in chaos. Safety and peace are a choice that originate from within me.

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ME-ME-ME

The reason I am exploring this is I am stepping into new territory in relationships. My solo days are slipping behind me. This doesn’t mean my aloneness is behind me, but any sort of isolation for safety sake is. And even though I have been in many relationships, circles and communities, I was very much alone -which is the worst kind of alone. That story is changing.

My north node is in Libra- yuck and yay! Meaning my dharma is to temper this hyper independent Aries (south node) fire in a way that others can gather around without getting burned up in my me- firstness in order to stay safe. I am destined toward (hopefully healthy) relationship. I am destined towards resourcing my sense of safety and being in right relationship with myself while with people. It’s a gift really.

It made a lot of sense in my life to become self sufficient and not lean into anyone in a world of wounded humans “governed” by very wounded humans. I, like many, was abandoned and harmed by every adult in my life, then every man I clung to and every boss whose deceptive hand I thought I needed to feed me. I was brutally attacked by my peers in many years of bullying and abuse in school. My sense of safety was rocked. Yes from many layers of abuse, but mostly from never having been taught properly about the nature of things, and more importantly, my true nature. It was gnar gnar.

My Aries fire has taught me how to alchemize selfishness and hyper independence (both trauma responses) into healthy individuation and how to choose what is truly good for me knowing that it is good for all. I am blessed to be able to stand inside of mySelf and trust the shepherding hand that often guides me out into the Wild to be eaten and regurgitated into new life. I have a PhD in aloneness, and yeah, I have had to face my loneliness, which is different.

I am a desert dwelling, wind whispering, cedar tree hugging, sea worthy woman. I have traveled the planet as a single, attractive, white female- so I was pretty much prey in many ways everywhere I went- which has given me such a beautiful, humble shape -that I love.

And that hug, oh that hug, that I unexpectedly fell into on one of my solo life-saving ventures, helped me access what can never abandon me, or be abandoned within me, as I faced all that has and will abandon me, because all that has and will- is designed to.

I will say that again- all that has and will abandon me is designed to.

The truth is, the cedar tree is not what created the wounding within me. So, I must step into a new arena of healing and face- people. Unreliable, wobbly, wounded, messy, brave, beautiful, extraordinary shape shifting, forms of the Divine- people. People that will hurt me if I place all of my safety needs upon their shoulders. But also if I take them all on my own in a way that prevents authentic relating.

Here is where I get to test, rest into, or eat, these words I write. I don’t make light of this task, especially as a woman where my whole body and heart has been preyed upon to feed the war machine for countless generations. And I am much wider than that his-tory.

And although I could easily go live in the ashram alone and pray at Amma’s feet everyday for the rest of my life (which I will anyhow- pray at Amma’s feet), it is not how I want to dance with God. I came here to dance in the blessed mess, not escape it to stay safe- it’s not what this great ship was made for. (I do not see monasticism as an escape as someone truly monastic holds a powerful vibe on the planet that we all need)

My community is in conversation around resiliency and how to collectively resource ourselves here in these shifting times -and I want to be a part of that without years of past fear pulling me out of the room. I want my hands to tremble as they are joined by the hands of my community and I face that old- old wound around wondering what I bring to the Circle and if anyone likes me. May my people pleasing days, for safety sake, be over so I can truly play free and fair.

I am exploring the idea of partnership, what that would mean for my life and how I want it to look with the wisdom I have collected - and I want to be open to that new vision. I want to be softened and soothed by the kiss of a good man knowing he will eventually leave me, as he must for his own life. Everyday I must be left as I must also leave- in order to stay in the way that truly serves what I have devoted my life to serving.

My stomach just turned a bit because my solo-ness was a form of safety- until it wasn’t. It was also where I learned so-so-so much and fell in love with myself for who I am when I am alone, nameless, and strung out on endless days of prayer in Nature listening to the silence that lives inside the endless flow life. So there is a grief, a death and an honoring process I am currently in.

Like this gorgeous river I can and I will stretch my edges to touch other’s edges and let our tatters weave new life, new Earth, new territory- because I know that no matter what beasts I meet, and there are plenty in and around me, I am safe. Famous last words- Heaven help me as I LOVE wider than my own sweet little Aries fire.

Blessed Be, Shira

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