A Passion for Peace

It seems the natural order of the universe from a centrally-located bundle of light energy to the Big Bang and from then onward has been an oscillation between order and chaos. Through chaos there is creation of new order, and then a challenge of that order by creation of more chaos, thus establishing a new order, and so on ad infinitum. These past six months have been something of a personal inner ordering. I've dug deep into my emotional world and learned a lot about myself and worked through much of my past pain and suffering that due to my previously frenetic pace of life I couldn't reflect on. It is not highly valued yet in our Western society, but it is extremely hard, humbling and confronting work to sit with oneself and work through all the shit that comes up. No excuses, no blaming, but taking full and complete responsibility for one's life and all that's been created, releasing the bits that do not work, being willing to ride out the emotional highs and lows, self-comfort and seek support. Even Jesus, as has been pointed out to me recently, disappeared into the desert for 18 years to work through his own personal challenges. "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man" (Luke 2:52). (Photo: a child's poem on a plaque in the MLK Memorial Rose Garden in Atlanta, GA)
It seems to me people from Obama to George Clooney or anyone who has achieved a powerful position and is stable inside (key word "stable," do not include dictators or flailing Lohan-like starlets on this list) are just sorting out their creative experiences on broader scales than the rest of us because they have mastered more of their self work in this University of life-long learning we call Being Human. I think the work is no different to ours. What I understand is that in this three-dimensional life we each have an emotional world, a physical world, and a mental world, and together they form our complete spirit. To be a master of all three seems to me to be consciously aware where you are in each--your challenges and boundaries and limitations and strengths and weaknesses--and to as best you can, unconditionally love and accept yourself exactly where you are, and therefore offer that gift to others around you as well. To stand up for yourself in healthy way while being kind to others as well; to seek support and to support others; to be a master manager of your emotions and work through them as best you can while also putting them aside at times so as to not be enslaved by or over-identify with them; to be a mastermind and not identify fully with the mind but recognise it for the fantastic tool it is for creative imaginings and memory processing and complex problem-solving and capacity to hold information; to be a master of your physicality and listen to your body and treat it like the temple and important vessel to carry you through this life that it is while also not falling victim to narcissism or over-indulgence in fleeting self-definition or seeking affirmation through physicality...these are all aspects or our stories, and our individual stories form our identities in our minds, but we are so much more, and so much less.

At the root of the root of it all, we are love, unconditional and infinitely accepting, and are all inter-being and co-creating and co-experiencing our lives. (Think the butterfly effect in Chaos Theory.) We all have infinite value and are deserving of infinite joy and wealth, happiness and health because we exist. We are all worthy. Our experiences of joy and love are as different as we are, or as they say in Cambodia, "Same same but different." We have so much in common, and the more I sit alone at home in myself and reflect on all I have seen and experienced in my short life so far, the more I see how much we get in our own way and distort this truth and create distance and confusion and chaos, so that we can reach this truth again and again in a deeper, more integrated and wonderful way. Such is life, to me, this challenge of feeling love and joy when it is not easily apparent, of deep acceptance and love and compassion for creatures human and otherwise we do not like or respect.


I have worked for years for survivors of child sexual abuse and to prevent this horrible experience, and people often say to me, "Wow, I couldn't do that, good for you." It is hard, I will not lie, but it is so deeply rewarding as well. And apparently for me it requires periodic self-refreshing sessions of some time to process all I've seen and heard, but I have just as much compassion for an abuser as any other person. An abuser is just as much a product of our society as you or I, and to work through such a deeply disturbing act requires they receive as much support and compassion as we can provide. This can of course be coupled with careful limitations and strong boundaries to keep them safe from further harming themselves or others. I would prefer to live in a world where we as a people and a collective culture we are so comfortable in our sexuality that we can talk about it openly and are not ashamed of our bodies and emotional desires or our taboo thoughts, do not overly identify with these, and seek support when we feel overwhelmed. I would prefer to live in a world where there is so much self-awareness that these urges and thoughts alone are enough for someone to seek support and help to prevent harm. (Photo: Yellow Branch Falls in Walhalla, SC)

But it seems to me we live primarily in a world of reaction and response, not prevention and reflection. How many people sit even once a month and reflect for 30 minutes on their priorities this month, this year, this life? How many people then reflect how they spend their time, money, energy and other resources, and if this reflects the priorities they outlined? And how many people then are capable and interested to take responsibility for themselves and their lives and create the change they wish to experience? (Photo: profound local paper bin in Savannah, GA) We all have the choice to do this with every living, breathing moment.

In this infinite dance of chaos and order, it strikes me we have collectively created and continue to create, a helluva lot of chaos, and I am among a growing minority not crying or screaming at the world for order or playing victim, but quietly calming and coming into myself, practicing extreme self-care, compassion, acceptance, patience and other aspects of loving resiliency, of growing peace within myself and accessing passion to fill my world with as much joy as I can so that I can be peace and passion and patience and compassion and acceptance and all these aspects of being inherent in each and every one of us, and in so doing help those I come in contact with access and grow these within themselves. The more I work on being these, the more my personal world becomes peaceful and passionate and dream-like in feeling; the less seriously I take life and the more fulfilled I feel and fun I have; the more I laugh and smile and see a light in someone's eyes, the window to the soul; the more the following poem by ee cummings appeals to me and the more life makes sense and settles in comfortably for me in all its current 2012 chaos:

seeker of truth

follow no paths
all paths lead where

truth is here

I am infinitely interested in everyone's stories and perspectives during my finite time on Earth, and to further a deepening of my understanding of different cultures and lifestyles and ways of being, will be moving to South America with my sweetheart in three weeks, during which time the blogging will be back on track. And I invite you to join me and to share your thoughts. xoxo