After-thoughts about ranting

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.