The Black and the White

How do we talk to each other? I listened to someone narrating a story of how he told off a company that just wouldn’t listen. The language Paul used in his narration spoke to me of deep seated anger. I understand anger. I have lived much of my life in a state of anger until I resolved the issues causing my anger – and so much of that was related to the stories I told myself about my relationship to the world.

There was a level of violence in the language Paul used. He quoted himself, “And I told the person on the other end of the phone that I have previously been polite, but if you call me again, I will come in person and deal with your bitch cunt wife.” Wow, that was not easy listening.

I have learnt over the course of my life that what I like in other people are usually qualities I like in myself, and vice versa. What I don’t like in myself I dislike in other people. We are mirrors for each other. Paul had an abusive mother. I do understand where he is coming from. The trouble is he is still coming from there. The stories he tells himself about strong women still resonate of his mother. In fact, most of the time when I hear a woman called “bitch” or “cunt” it is a way of diminishing her strength.

How do we deal with strong women? Just as people do not always talk nicely to one another: Even if the anger is directed at someone else, I am still picking up the venom when I am listening. If I had not learned to divorce myself from other people’s “stuff” I would now be harboring that same dense, violent energy. I am a strong woman. I have been called all that nasty stuff at one time or another. I finally learned not to accept other people’s labeling of me as this, that or the other thing, but I have not yet learned how to help other people see that they are responsible for their own stories, and the circumstances that arise from them. When I try to find language for what I am picking up from others as they vent and carry on, the words I find often pass right overhead.

I think what we need to do as collective humanity is to return to a language of the Soul. The Soul is able to step into another person’s shoes and make connections with life experiences that may echo another person’s. This is how I am able to let go of animosity and find a feeling of caring to share in my relationships with other people. Sometimes I listen to venting, because I am caring, but I create an energy field around myself that can listen without taking in the energy that is being vented.

Today I said to Paul, “Wow! Don’t shoot the messenger!” Paul asked me, “Why would I do that?” I said, “Because of your anger at so-and-so!” Paul more calmly said to me, “But it’s compartmentalized.” I asked, “Your anger, or the corporation that called you?” “Both,” he answered. His response reminded me yet again that he does not have to act on his anger.

I know Paul is a decent hard working man who sustains himself and his family, but sometimes his reactions strike that cord in me that relates to violence. I came from a family dynamic of violence as well. Perhaps what is compartmentalized is the wounded inner child. How do we heal from this? And how do we relate to violence in men (and women), who unlike Paul, are not able to keep their emotions compartmentalized?

As I write this morning, many connections to anger suggest themselves to me. There is the anger of parent against child, of spouse against spouse, of one social group against another. There is an unspoken agreement in the white Protestant culture in which I was raised that women are not supposed to get angry. Although I am a strong woman, I learned to tone my anger down over the course of my life in order to get along with those close to me. My husband once complained to me that I am supposed to be continually sweet and easy to get along with, but the unspoken assumption was that it was acceptable for him, like it was for my father, to be an angry man. How much goes unsaid once it is repressed, and how much healing could have been accomplished if I had learned how to process my anger growing up! But that is all water under the dam. I have learned to listen since then, and so it was that I found myself listening to Paul vent earlier. It was a release of toxic energy for him, of feeling disrespected by that corporation.

I jump to another scenario, because when I think of strong women, I think of some of the Black women I have known in my life. These women are so strong. I would name some of these people, but I want to respect their privacy. I knew them at college as professors, I knew them at the Job Corps where I served as an art instructor a couple decades ago, I know of Oprah from her great work in the public eye. The racial issues confronting the collective today are also born of the stories we tell ourselves, and I want to mention this because it is important. It is so important. Language defines us and the stories we hold on to define us.

Over the course of American history a language of slavery was created. This is a language of power over others, of those others taken from their homelands sometimes by their own people, and of human lives being traded for money and subjected to grave suffering. This is a language of superiority that one human being assumes the right to have power over another that one deems inferior.

As America struggles to rise above the language of slavery and superiority the culture has created a language of racism. This is important to draw attention to the facts of history, but what I see in the conceptualism of this language is that humans are also being polarized, one against another because of skin color. This creates a divide. Those who come together must overcome this language in order that racism be healed by the fact of our humanity. Racism is not a one way street where Whites hate Blacks. Those who have been oppressed also have learned to hate, and reverse racism is a fact that exists. Black folks are capable of hating White folks, and the whole sordid mess continues over generations until everyone learns to process and forgive and move on with justice and mercy for all. But this won’t happen until the collective consciousness is able to change up its stories to more positive, life affirming outcomes.

I watched Oprah on Youtube telling her story of success. I love Oprah. She is fierce and tells things as she sees them. She uses her public platform to encourage people -all people- to grow their Soul. Invictus by William Ernest Henley moved Oprah hugely during her formative years. Here is the poem:

Invictus

William Ernest Henley – 1849-1903

• Out of the night that covers me,   
•   Black as the Pit from pole to pole,   
• I thank whatever gods may be   
•   For my unconquerable soul.   

In the fell clutch of circumstance 
  I have not winced nor cried aloud.   
Under the bludgeonings of chance   
  My head is bloody, but unbowed.   

Beyond this place of wrath and tears   
  Looms but the Horror of the shade, 
And yet the menace of the years   
  Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.   

It matters not how strait the gate,   
  How charged with punishments the scroll,   
I am the master of my fate:
  I am the captain of my soul.

Unfinished Projects

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

She sat staring at all the empty boxes and the packing yet to do. Still on the wall were the photos of the baby, now grown, all the memories of the growing up years, and all the regrets of things not done. She’d taken another way, left a marriage confident in her ability to earn a living, but things had not worked out in the way she’d hoped. She had too much drive and impatience to hold temper with any one particular job, and her boy had largely grown up with his father. She’d missed out on a lot of her son’s school years, and now she had the regrets and the empty nest.

She’d hoped he would opt for college. That was her forte, learning and studying. She could have helped him do well there, she thought, but her son had opted for the military instead. Worry had broken her heart for a time, but she rose above it, and put the pieces of her love back together, knitting them stitch by stitch until she was fully behind his decision, one hundred percent, Uncle Sam wants you.

She was so excited to drive down and watch his graduation from Parris Island, fit and fatigued from the Crucible. It was a huge deal, marching bands, all the young men fit and handsome in their drill uniforms while tearful mothers and proud fathers tried to pick their child out of the line up. The reunion of young men little boys for a moment grabbed their families in strong armed Marine hugs and accompanying music of family noises and “How have you beens?” There was the dinner together, then all too soon the weekend was over, and son went home for a week to father before heading back to Marine life and mother went back to her several part-time jobs.

When she thought about her emptiness and the sadness at all, she allowed herself a sigh, wiped a tear from her eye, put back on the cheerful smile, and got back to work.

The Invitation of the Forest

Forest called Janelle. The strength of her own need pulled her until she was standing under the old moss-laden oak that marked the boundary of her father’s lands from the Elder wood. Clear mystery marked the border. The green of home demarcated sharply into hues of brown and gray, the deciduous forest giving way to the rich browns and grays under the shadowy firs. The scent of the forest changed too, sweet smell of decaying leaf giving way to the sharp scent of pine. Janelle felt more at home here, where the mystery called to her heart, and the trees whispered her name.

She wandered into the heart of the Old Wood. She had never met another human soul here, although the old mothers of her village spoke of the Huldre-kin who cared for the ancient trees. “Just like me,” the Granny had laughed, “with me creaky knees and hip that twinges.”

Janelle sat down now, with her back against her favorite tree, its rough bark digging into her back until the right change of position saved her from its poking. She closed her eyes and went deep, deep into the soil, and far, far overhead where the stars looked down upon the earth. Sometimes she could sense things beyond her own kenning, but she did not seek to explain them. It was enough to feel her way into becoming part of the Mystery.

Still Standing

“Cat Mom” ended with some pretty heavy emotions for me, but although the times were emotionally difficult, they gave me compassion and empathy. When I finally let go of the identification with those old raw emotions, they no longer troubled me so much. Underneath all the rawness is a deep well of love. Sometimes that love engages my warrior nature’s protective side and I want to make the world right. But despite all the Super Hero comics and Super Hero movies wherein one person or a small group out to save the world succeeds, the reality is just lil’ old me against a big Earth, and Earth is not the one who needs saving.

Humanity needs saving, and if Jesus couldn’t do it, how can lil’ old me expect to? How can lil’ ol’ you or you or you expect to? I’m just going to let go of the whole “expect to” game. We are told so many lies and half-truths mixed in with what is Real, that there is a lot to sort out. I’m just going to sit with this huge big old vat of love inside of me brewing away. It’s a mixed beer: all of life’s happy and sad, sad and happy experiences mulled into it. All of the friendships and work relationships that are almost friendships and relatives and every memory of every person I’ve ever known and met, all loved or hated or in-between.

In the Norse Mythology there is a story about how when the Aesir and the Vanir finally settled their war, they were brewing a big old vat of Meade. They all spit into the Meade to seal the deal. That Meade troubled and boiled and fermented and out of it stepped the world’s wisest man. The Gods named him Kvasir. Kvasir roamed the world with his Good Will sharing his Wisdom freely, until he happened upon some greedy dwarfs who wanted Kvasir’s wisdom for themselves. So they killed him and put his blood into some Meade they had brewing. Now whenever anyone drinks this Meade of inspiration…

Now that becomes the question. Does it make them Wise? Or does it aggravate whatever emotion is most troubling to them? Because those dwarfs got downright paranoid about having that Kvasir-enhanced Meade. If they drank it, they were not Wise, Peaceful, and Benificent. No. Their greed got them killed, and Gunlod’s father got a hold of it and was keeping it safe until Odin had to go rescue it by some stealthy means, and now Odin is known as the God of Frenzy and Inspiration.

Still Standing. By Elton John.

Story Telling

When I was in the second grade, I began telling my teacher and my classmates stories of the life I wanted as if it was the life I had. Although none of this was “real,” the fantasy story spun out as if it were, and I began making friendships and getting attention.

The story was that I kept my horse at my grandfather’s farm, and that spring she had a foal, and I was getting to watch it grow up.

I never thought of these stories as lies; they were simply my way of inventing the life I wanted but couldn’t have. Mom and Dad could not afford to get me a horse, and I was too young to get a job to support one.

Mom and Dad attended the Parent Teachers Conference, learned about my stories, labeled them “lies,” and I felt the strap very painfully.

When I reflect back on this, I did not and do not feel any wrong doing in creating those stories. The stories were a way to create what I wanted and did not have. I had horses later in my life and I did watch foals grow up. I think storytelling provides people with ways of expressing needs, wants, and desires that may not be practical where they are at or the circumstances in which they are living. I am not saying lies are harmless, but that stories ought to be looked at in terms of the motivation of the storyteller.

My second grade venture into storytelling taught me that people have different perspectives on life. For Mom and Dad, “telling the truth” meant sticking to the facts of everyday physical life. They did not relate well to the murkier “stuff” -difficult emotions- lurking under the surface.

When I was seven, the family cat got hit by a car and I was the one who found him. It was the night of Good Friday, and we had come home from a church service. Dad created a comfortable bed in an old orange crate for the cat and promised me that if he was still alive Monday morning we would take him to the vet. Comforting my self with the teachings of the Resurrection, I had a firm and unshakeable belief that the cat would live, because I was praying for that outcome.

The cat died. I could then accept the cat’s death on the faith that I would see him again in heaven. Except that old concept of the “truth” again… Mom and Dad did not believe that animals went to heaven. After arguing with them both for months, I finally gave up and carried the grief of their “truth” for many years.

I don’t know if there is a moral here, but I can certainly trace my perhaps morbid fascination with the process of life and death back to the contradiction implanted in my childhood psyche by parents who assumed their belief in Resurrection was fact and denigrated the value of my love for the cat, which in their worldview was unworthy of a resurrection. The extremes of Christianity cast me out of that religion, and I don’t look back. If God is Love, why would He cast one into a fear-based hell? Or devalue of love for the cat?

I no longer draw hierarchies in my mindset about what or who or whether certain beings are worthy of life. In my mindset we are all created beings partaking in time on Earth, which ought to be thought of as a gift to all. We share breath, we share the experience of having a body, we have senses with which to perceive, and a mind with which to make sense of it all. I honor the rattlesnake for his venom as I honor the little garden spider whose web traps biting flies as I honor the bear I meet berry picking. When I have love, I rise above fear, and I can step into the unknown of these encounters without concern.

Things may seem black and white, but the in-between spaces carry tones of grays and colors that enrich the palette. I am not for humans only, but nor do I hate humans for the way some mistreat animals. Rather I am saddened by the people do not see the value in life itself, who value material goods and a good appearance over the inward truth of the heart.

We all have conditioned things in our psyche that drive us and cause us to act and react the way that we do. What I am in hope for, is that more people will choose to live a self-examined life, to discover what, who, and how they are, and discard fear-based beliefs that fail them as individuals and the collective humanity of which we are part. Only then can humans adjust their behaviors to what will be of the highest good for all.