This photo was taken during Deva Dance that I facilitated on Saturday night the 22nd of July, 2007.

I had the pleasure of spending last weekend at Dreamtime.  What a blessing to hang out in festival space beyond the norm of what we humans generally get to do together and create and play and EXPRESS.

I got to see how crutial it is for me to express through dancing, to let my energy move in that way, how it serves the rest of my life.

Several times recently I have been given the guidance -- hang out in the North Fork Valley of Colorado and DANCE.

I pray for help breaking through the inertia.  I pray for help moving through my resistance to marketing.  I pray to serve.

And what a relief to have guidance, having been in a bit of a void for the last few months.

Thank God(ess).

I am angry.

 

And more than angry I have been afraid.

 

Afraid to speak that which I know to be true, and afraid to speak the obvious in a way that anyone could hear me.  I have liked to say, “there are those that fight the old system and there are those that are here to build the new.” And I have been afraid of my anger, people are killed every day for the privilege of speech.  In addition, I have the visceral body-memory of being burned at the stake as a witch and it’s no wonder I do not speak.  There are lines and I dare not approach them.

 

Several years ago I became a performer and developed a nearly paralyzing hatred for my body.  “Every time you hate your body, society’s doing just fine keeping you down,” ~Rebecca Riots. I am angry how distracted most Americans are by the image of themselves, they/I are too busy to pay attention to the state of the world.  Are too busy being held hostage by themselves to step outside of the construct of our reality to take action.  I am very clear that this hatred of my body has also been an attempt to still this voice that might began screaming and attract attention to this body that is so tenderly vulnerable.

 

And death is inevitable.

 

I have heard that it is deliberate on the part of the government of this country to create hopelessness in it’s citizens so that we do not speak, gather, rally, or steal power that is rightfully ours.  It has worked.  I have been afraid, and hopeless and convinced that nothing that I say or do will make a difference.  Hopelessness plus fear = paralyzed.

 

What I see, if I was willing to see and speak is a country running so fast towards a brick wall we barely have time to put up our hands before we hit it. And paradoxically, I am hopeful, that maybe this, maybe something so obvious and big will be the catalyst for the change that is needed in order for sanity, justice, and kindness to prevail.  However historically, that has not been the case.  Historically this type of destruction of a known system gives rise to more fear and more controlled forms of government.

 

My anger more often than not turns inwards on myself rather than outwards to the world.  I am angry at my own limitations, my own humanness, my own failings.  I am angry that I have not found a way to take action that feels sane and satisfying at the same time.  I am angry.  If I had a sword to cleave through my reality, I would first free myself from the hatred of this body, then free myself from the fear of seeing, then free myself from the fear of the death of speaking, then free others from their cages.

 

I want to believe that humans are inherently good and that if we were free from our habitual conditioning, we would be kind to ourselves and others.

 

This is not what I see reflected from the world.

 

I have clean drinking water.  I have enough clean drinking water that I can bathe in it every day, as can the other members of my house.  I have done nothing to deserve this privilege and I’m not convinced that I have done anything useful with this privilege.

 

“If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.”  And yet, with so many mis-uses of anger, it’s no wonder that it has become such a distrusted guide for us humans.

 

“The instinctive, natural way to express anger is to respond aggressively. Anger is a natural, adaptive response to threats; it inspires powerful, often aggressive, feelings and behaviors, which allow us to fight and to defend ourselves when we are attacked. A certain amount of anger, therefore, is necessary to our survival.”(www. http://www.apa.org/topics/controlanger.html)  It is no surprise to me that we have “anger problems” in this culture which are so obviously a natural response to a violation of one’s boundaries misdirected at a system that is difficult to touch.  As Joanna Macy says, “reframe their pain for the world as evidence of their interconnectedness in the web of life, and hence of their power to take part in its healing.”(http://www.joannamacy.net/html/work.html)

 

A friend of mine spoke vividly about his fear of our collective inability to take action or make decisions in clear, clean and responsible ways.  It’s not a matter of “if” change is needed right now on the planet.  Obviously, change is needed now.  And I hope that it is not already too late.  I do have a certain human desire for this species to continue.  Even if consciousness itself, who we truly are, will not be affected by the destruction of the species, I would prefer human intelligence to win this battle that I see us engaged in.

 

Complacency and hopelessness are so clearly linked.  A culture designed to distract and prevent us from hearing our internal truth is not random.

 

I suppose then it all comes down to power.  Who has it and what they do with it.  When a friend suggested that I write to the president, I responded with my disbelief that he is anything but a mouthpiece for the current power structure.  I don’t know how to speak so that those who are actually in power might hear me.  I also see the double-bind they are in as actually taking change to redistribute power would strip them of their privilege and everything they know to be true and I can see from my own life how few are willing to make that leap.

 

How do I become an accomplice of systems of oppression?  When that system is part of the reason that I have the privilege that I do.  I have a good life.  Am I willing to jeopardize that by speaking what I know to be true?  I find this a daily struggle for myself, at work and with my housemates.  Can I stand in the face of disapproval and possible loss to speak?  Sometimes.  Am I really willing to give up my privilege for justice?  Am I really willing to give up my safe life for the benefit of all beings?  Are you?

 

To vision a future that is truly sustainable, it must work for all humans, not at the expense of 90% of the humans on the planet.

 

There is power in the many.  There is power in standing in Truth and stating our perceptions.

 

It is possible to re-claim power that has been given to “the authority.”  And it happens moment by moment.  It happens in beginning to notice.  In beginning to listen to the call of pain echoing through the psyche-scapes of so many.  It begins with standing in the Truth of who we are as vast untouchable consciousness while staying connected to the human lives that are at stake here.  It begins by staying connected to one another, listening, gathering, honoring, being honest, being human and being seen.

 

It begins by taking action.  Now.  To commit to live more fully as the person you imagine being “if only. . .” What is one thing this person would do?  Donate money, bring reusable bags to the store, buy organic, create sustainable community where you are, with the people you love – now, before we are forced to see how much stress this system can actually take.

 

My prayer is to be willing to stand in the power of the energy that moves through this body and to open ever more fully to the power that wields the sword of my clarity. Amen.  May you find your voice and use it to speak the Truth.

 

~ADH. December 11, 2006

Well, the Matrix Leadership Institute Foundation training just began and what a ride it was.
Much learning.  Much burning out of the old ways of being to make room for the new.  Not always a comfortable process, and certainly, certainly it will serve me and the world.

Check it out www.matrixleadership.com  --- course the website isn't live just yet, but soon. . . . within hours.

blessings and light,
Arlyn