I said my rant about being poor was not very spiritual, but
perhaps I was wrong.
I also thought that the ceremony I conducted during the full
moon was a way to release my fears and feelings, and that because I was feeling
so angry that it had not worked.
Now, I believe I was wrong about that, too.
Inviting the release of these deeply held, powerful, old
feelings should never have been thought of as so simply accomplished. Instead, I now consider that the feelings
coming back so strong, so forcefully, so angrily, was the process of release.
You cannot release feelings you hold close and try not to feel. You first have to feel them. And that means
feeling them fully. Not feeling them while trying to unwrap them and make them into
something zen-like and peaceful. Not feeling them and apologizing for
being angry. Just FEELING them. In all their ugly angry glory. All the resentment, all the hostility, all
the frustration, all the sheer fury of being constantly thwarted and suffering
over so many decades have to be expressed before they can be released.
So I cried and I yelled and I ranted, then I wrote, then I
actually had the NERVE to post it! And I
feel better. I shared it. And it was truthful, no matter what anyone
else thinks about it.
I have to admit, though, that I did hold back a bit. I left out the parts where I contemplated
imaginary retribution. I deleted
anything that I thought might attract the attention of any law enforcement
agency, or anti-terrorist task force, or risked my being put on the no-fly
list. I may have occasional violent
thoughts, but I never act upon them, except maybe to slam a cabinet door—or
occasionally thwack an empty metal drum with an axe handle. But never any harm to human or any other
living being.
One never gets anywhere pretending that you don’t have dark
thoughts and powerful feelings. If you
are enraged, then rage. Just don’t use
that rage destructively. A great deal of
my energy to make things happen for positive changes in my life has come from redirected
anger. You can’t just kill something, so
you may as well build something. Anger
can be turned into determination. It can
give you the energy to create change. Anger can make you fierce and
strong. Properly embraced, anger can be
your friend.
I was raised to be “nice” as most girls are. Cinderella, Snow White and Mary Poppins never
got angry. Yet, as I age, I realize how
much my anger has given me power, has sustained me when I had no idea how I
would go on. How my anger is simply the
shadow-side of my passion—my passion for love, for life, for justice, for the
earth, for spirit. I cannot have the one
side without the other.
So my little meltdown earlier was a catharsis, a direct
release of years of maybe-not-so-carefully-controlled feelings. Let this be
instructive. We should not fear our
feelings, but embrace them, as long as we recognize that feeling negative feelings
does not mean we have to inflict injury upon others. We just need to feel, express in non-harmful
ways, and move on.
And thanks for listening.