Letting Go

"When a relationship ends, use the pain and difficult feelings to deepen your practice... to see vividly the infinite depth of being in the intensity of your broken heart". -- Ken McLeod

True Love

This winter has been especially difficult for me. Maybe you can relate.

I feel in some ways that I have been dismantled by the difficulty of this season. In fact, I think I am probably writing from right inside the middle of the dismantling process, and not from on the other side of it just yet. 

Perhaps the dismantling is unrelated to winter, and more related to aging. Perhaps, as I commit myself to engaging more authentically in the reality of world I am living in, I am just more aware of the difficulty. Perhaps, prior to now, I was using the naivete of my own mostly satisfying young adult life to try to defend myself against the reality of unavoidable, un-fixable human heart-break. 

As a person devoted to learning how to be with people in their own experiences of heart-break, I look back now on my first few years practicing this art, and wonder if my clients ever felt abandoned or disappointed by my unconscious attitude that "things can and will get better with the right kind of hard work". Because lately, I have been learning the exact opposite lesson. The lesson that says, "even if you do everything right, tragedy can and may still find you". 

It can find you despite all your hyper-vigilance and preventive practices. It can come and find you while you're sound asleep inside the safety of your own spiritual or psychological resiliency. It can set up camp right in the center of your own human heart... making the safest, most authentic place for you to dwell, also the most excruciating place to try sit down and take stock.

So, for now, I feel like I am trying to locate myself again... trying to find my new perimeter, new center, and new dimensions. It's strange, and uncomfortable, and I keep hoping that it will still feel beautiful to be a part of the human family... instead of simply horrifying. 

Sometimes I am not sure, and that's probably one of the most honest things I've ever said in my whole life. 

And yet, still somehow, within me, there is this experience of Love. Even when I'm totally worn out, if I take a minute to land in my own heart space, I find it. Endlessly pulsing, seemingly tireless. Somehow, this remains. Over and over. Indestructible. Unbroken, seamless, cohesive. Unconvinced by my defensive numbing out strategies. Beyond my personal limitations, this is the force that remains. As if it's beyond, or outside of wounding altogether.

A miracle.

Consequently, my daily practice, if I am tender enough with myself to remember it, has become this: recognizing how any encounter with Love is a gift beyond all suffering. Or maybe a gift that can hold all suffering. Never erasing it, of course, but strong enough to be with it. 

For this, I am humbled, and I am thankful. 

Namaste,

Whitney

Inner Authority

"I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.”

-- Hermann Hesse

Love

"Surrendering completely to love, be it human or divine, means giving up everything, including our own well-being or our ability to make decisions. The truth is that we don't want to be saved in the way God has chosen; we want to keep absolute control over our every step, to be fully conscious of our decisions, to be capable of choosing the object of our devotion.  But it isn't like that with love - it arrives, moves in, and starts directing everything.  Only very strong souls allow themselves to be swept along."

-- Paulo Coelho

Remembering what we already know.

I want to learn how to let Love move through me unobstructed.

Believing that particular Resource is Eternally and Infinitely available.

The Alpha, the Omega, the Beginning, and the End.

Dwelling right inside of me.

Perhaps then I could freely give That which I knew could never be exhausted.

Love.
Love.
Love.

Love.

My soul says, "It's True already, you know?"

And I can only respond, "I'm working on Remembering".


-- Whitney Logan

Creation According to Eve? (Humor me).

Somewhat paradoxically, my movement away an over-identification with church dogma began during a course on the Old Testament at a Baptist university in Texas. Like any good overview class should, we started with the creation narratives (there are two!) in the book for Genesis. To my utter amazement, the ordained Baptist minister that was teaching my class let us in on this little secret: one of the two creation stories suggests literarily (not literally, but literar(y)-ily) that Eve is the apex of creation! Essentially, the literary movement of the story tells us that God ordered "His" creations to be increasingly more complex throughout the course of those seven days; the cherry on top being woman (Eve).

That struck me as supremely confusing at the time, as I didn't know how to reconcile this with the rest of the things I'd been taught through my religious education so far. Consequently, it took years and years of letting that gem of knowledge marinate in my mind until it eventually collided with the teachings of other spiritual wisdom traditions for me to start making some new assumptions.

But, let's get back to the juicy tale here! If Eve is really the apex of creation, why then did God say all that nonsense about giving Adam a "helper" (insert mental image of woman in an apron without the right to vote) when he created her? Well, turns out: God called Eve a "helper" using the same language "He" also used to describe "Himself" in the role as "helper". The Hebrew phrase is "ezer kenegdo", and it is only used again throughout the rest of the whole Old Testament to describe the kind of help God offers to mankind.

Eve is starting to seem like less of a disappointment right now, huh? Well, it gets better. In light of this new information let's revisit that infamous "how Eve got tricked by the snake into ruining everything for the rest of us" Garden scene and examine a few of the other symbols we find there.  We can no longer necessarily assume that Eve is somehow dumber than Adam and consequently more likely to get "tricked" by such a wily snake like she's some sort of naive damsel in distress, right?

So, what's the deal with Eve and seemingly spineless exchange with the serpent then? Well, here's a fun fact: a serpent or snake in nearly every other ancient spiritual tradition is often considered a feminine symbol, as it (like a woman) has an intimate, embodied knowledge about the cycles of life, death, and re-birth through it's molting (skin-shedding) process. Menstruating women are also connected to this intimate knowledge of the cycles of life through the shedding of their uterine (endometrial) lining, which is how the two creatures got linked to one another. So curious!

Now if we decide to take a little risk and consider that neither the serpent nor Eve are all bad, what are we to make of this whole business of eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (despite being told not to quite emphatically!)? On a symbolic level, eating from that tree in particular sorta sounds to me like a kind of initiation into a new type of moral consciousness. The kind of consciousness that can separate or distinguish "good" from "bad". I imagine that developmental psychologists might suggest an interesting parallel between the timing of typical menstruation and the various stages of moral development.

But let's leave that aside for a moment, and notice that whatever exciting symbolism may be there, we still need to deal with this business of getting kicked out of the "Garden" after being initiated into "knowing what's up" re: good and evil. Is it just because they broke the rules? And what do we make of the snake's seductive little statement to Eve about how eating the fruit would make her "like God"?

First, let's maybe ask ourselves how it is that knowledge of "Good and Evil" makes a person like God? I have a friend that suggested to me that perhaps knowing about "Good and Evil" is the only way we can really examine our choices and know ourselves. Essentially, consciousness of ourselves is possible when we are able to understand the relationship between "Good and Evil", and then recognize our own power to make informed choices.

Second, let's reflect on why we understand this resulting banishment from the Garden as such a devastating fate for our spiritual ancestors. What is so compelling about the Garden that this makes us feel so convinced that this was an excruciating experience of loss? The symbol of the Garden itself suggests fertility, new life, the womb, the lap of the Mother, the place of fusion with Caregivers, and innocence about our own Responsibility in the world. I imagine that the last time we all felt that kind of unconscious union was probably right before we became conscious of our "separateness" from "mother".

Regardless of whether or not we are projecting our own sense of loss onto their exile, we seem to be able to deeply relate to this anguish and shame that Adam and Eve experience. We think we know that this is a very terrible moment when Adam and Eve begin to feel their "separateness" from God and each other, and try to hide themselves out of shame. They are able to recognize their nakedness (vulnerability) for the first time, seem to have a negative judgment about this, and are consequently alienated from the blissful privilege of unconsciousness that the Garden had allowed them to enjoy up until then.

Yet, this same story also says that God made man and woman in "His" own image, and that "He" saw that this was very good. If we're going to consider everything else literar-ily, we might start to wonder if this story is not just the perfect set up for the most epic Redemption tale of all time.  A real prelude of sorts for what was would happen next (i.e. Jesus Christ: the personification of this Life, Death, And Re-Birth phenomena that seems to make the world go round).

And why did we need Jesus to do this for us? Drumroll, please: I'm inclined to think that it was so that we could have the courage to Remember that the Garden is within us! Jesus' big message was all, "hey guys, you don't need religious folks in fancy robes to stand between you and the Divine in order to mediate that relationship anymore". Maybe some people took him seriously, but mostly, it seems to me that the religious culture in the West has literalized their way right back in the same legalistic "Oh no, we've been kicked out of the Garden and are so ashamed, so let's come up with a bunch of rules and rituals that will help alleviate our guilt and anxiety" system that Jesus made a point to criticize thousands of years ago. I don't like speaking for Jesus, and so I won't. But I personally like to assume that he would be pretty disappointed by the current state of things too.

Speaking of Jesus, rumor has it that he was trying to bring Good News to people! I believe - passionately - that his "Good News" was a message about we can know that place of union (Garden) with God inside of ourselves!  For real.

AND SO IN CONCLUSION(ish), and because I think it's worth considering, I'm boldly saying, "hey people, these stories might be telling us that the Gospel truth sounds like this: turns out, we can choose (in any moment) to leave or return or leave and return again to this place of union with the Divine". Connection, Separation, Re-connection. Life, Death, Re-birth. The trees do it. Our cells do it. Snakes do it. The seasons too. The human heart beat reminds us of this rhythm: contraction, expansion, contraction. Perhaps the sound of the Universe is echoing in our own chests for a reason.

And we get to be conscious of it! What a gift.

This gift of consciousness given from God to the snake, and then from the snake to Eve, and Eve to Adam - might be the kind of gift that empowers us with the exquisite creativity - and very real responsibility - that makes us "like God" in some important way. We too can choose how to use this gift of consciousness: creatively or destructively (for Good or for Evil, so to speak).

As a being that could offer Adam the kind of "help" that God offers to mankind, we might even want to conclude that Eve had good motives for sharing that fruit with him after she had tasted it herself. I think I love her for her conscious courage.

**And by the way, any good parent (Divine or otherwise) knows that if you want to be sure to get your kids to eat something strange and unfamiliar you should try telling them something like "eat anything you want.... except for this one special thing... that's only for grown-ups, which I've willingly placed here unlocked and unguarded".

Nice trick, God.
 
And thank you.... for trusting us enough to let us become conscious of the Mystery.

The initiation was brutal, but the reward is so sweet.

The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene

Pages 1-6 are missing.

     "… Will m[a]tter then be utterly [destr]oyed or not?"
     The Savior replied, "Every nature, every modeled form, every creature, exists in and with each other. They will dissolve again into their own proper root. For the nature of matter is dissolved into what belongs to its nature. Anyone with two ears able to hear should listen!"
     Then Peter said to him, "You have been explaining every topic to us; tell us one other thing. What is the sin of the world?"
     The Savior replied, "There is no such thing as sin; rather you yourselves are what produces sin when you act in accordance with the nature of adultery, which is called 'sin.' For this reason, the Good came among you, pursuing (the good) which belongs to every nature. It will set it within its root."
     Then he continued. He said, "This is why you get si[c]k and die: because [you love] what de[c]ei[ve]s [you]. [Anyone who] thinks should consider (these matters)!
     "[Ma]tter gav[e bi]rth to a passion which has no Image because it derives from what is contrary to nature. A disturbing confusion then occurred in the whole body. That is why I told you, 'Become content at heart, while also remaining discontent and disobedient; indeed become contented and agreeable (only) in the presence of that other Image of nature.' Anyone with two ears capable of hearing should listen!"
     When the Blessed One had said these things, he greeted them all. "Peace be with you!" he said. "Acquire my peace within yourselves!
     "Be on your guard so that no one deceives you by saying, 'Look over here!' or 'Look over there!' For the child of true Humanity exists within you. Follow it! Those who search for it will find it.
     "Go then, preac[h] the good news about the Realm. [Do] not lay down any rule beyond what I determined for you, nor promulgate law like the lawgiver, or else you might be dominated by it."
After he had said these things, he departed from them.
     But they were distressed and wept greatly. "How are we going to go out to the rest of the world to announce the good news about the Realm of the child of true Humanity?" they said. "If they did not spare him, how will they spare us?"
     Then Mary stood up. She greeted them all, addressing her brothers and sisters, "Do not weep and be distressed nor let your hearts be irresolute. For his grace will be with you all and will shelter you. Rather we should praise his greatness, for he has prepared us and made us true Human beings."
      When Mary had said these things, she turned their heart [to]ward the Good, and they began to deba[t]e about the wor[d]s of [the Savior].
     Peter said to Mary, "Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than all other women. Tell us the words of the Savior that you remember, the things which you know that we don't because we haven't heard them."
     Mary responded, "I will teach you about what is hidden from you." And she began to speak these words to them.
     She said, "I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to him, 'Lord, I saw you today in a vision.'
He answered me, 'How wonderful you are for not wavering at seeing me! For where the mind is, there is the treasure.'
     I said to him, 'So now, Lord, does a person who sees a vision see it <with> the soul <or> with the spirit?'
     The Savior answered, 'A person does not see with the soul or with the spirit. 'Rather the mind, which exists between these two, sees the vision an[d] that is w[hat … ]'

(Pages 11-14 are missing.)

     " '… it.'
     "And Desire said, 'I did not see you go down, yet now I see you go up. So why do you lie since you belong to me?'
     "The soul answered, 'I saw you. You did not see me nor did you know me. You (mis)took the garment (I wore) for my (true) self. And you did not recognize me.'
     "After it had said these things, it left rejoicing greatly.
     "Again, it came to the third Power, which is called 'Ignorance.' [It] examined the soul closely, saying, 'Where are you going? You are bound by wickedness. Indeed you are bound! Do not judge!'
     "And the soul said, 'Why do you judge me, since I have not passed judgement? I have been bound, but I have not bound (anything). They did not recognize me, but I have recognized that the universe is to be dissolved, both the things of earth and those of heaven.'
     "When the soul had brought the third Power to naught, it went upward and saw the fourth Power. It had seven forms. The first form is darkness; the second is desire; the third is ignorance; the fourth is zeal for death; the fifth is the realm of the flesh; the sixth is the foolish wisdom of the flesh; the seventh is the wisdom of the wrathful person. These are the seven Powers of Wrath.
     "They interrogated the soul, 'Where are you coming from, human-killer, and where are you going, space-conqueror?'
     "The soul replied, saying, 'What binds me has been slain, and what surrounds me has been destroyed, and my desire has been brought to an end, and ignorance has died. In a [wor]ld, I was set loose from a world [an]d in a type, from a type which is above, and (from) the chain of forgetfulness which exists in time. From this hour on, for the time of the due season of the aeon, I will receive rest i[n] silence.' "
     After Mary had said these things, she was silent, since it was up to this point that the Savior had spoken to her.
     Andrew responded, addressing the brothers and sisters, "Say what you will about the things she has said, but I do not believe that the S[a]vior said these things, f[or] indeed these teachings are strange ideas."
     Peter responded, bringing up similar concerns. He questioned them about the Savior: "Did he, then, speak with a woman in private without our knowing about it? Are we to turn around and listen to her? Did he choose her over us?"
     Then [M]ary wept and said to Peter, "My brother Peter, what are you imagining? Do you think that I have thought up these things by myself in my heart or that I am telling lies about the Savior?"
Levi answered, speaking to Peter, "Peter, you have always been a wrathful person. Now I see you contending against the woman like the Adversaries. For if the Savior made her worthy, who are you then for your part to reject her? Assuredly the Savior's knowledge of her is completely reliable. That is why he loved her more than us.
     "Rather we should be ashamed. We should clothe ourselves with the perfect Human, acquire it for ourselves as he commanded us, and announce the good news, not laying down any other rule or law that differs from what the Savior said."
     After [he had said these] things, they started going out [to] teach and to preach.

The temple of the Heart

"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.  There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground."  -- Rumi

Fruit of the Spirit

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a shamanic retreat at a beautiful retreat center near St. Louis.  For those who are unfamiliar with the concept of shamanism, here's a few rough talking points: a shaman is an indigenous (i.e. in some way native to the "place" they practice) healer.  They often facilitate "journeys" to transpersonal realms so that people might have experiences of healing and transformation they may not otherwise have access to in their ordinary waking state of consciousness.  In shamanism, there is also a deep belief in reciprocal exchange between all potential and manifest energies.  In other words, it's possible for us to have a mutually influential relationship (and an ongoing conversation!) with all things - visible and invisible.

During this recent retreat, for example, I was able to receive some information about the psychological origins of a current experience of dis-ease in my physical body.  From this previously mentioned belief in the possibility of reciprocal relationship with all energies, I was encouraged to ask the dis-ease itself about it's origins.  I asked this specific energy why it had manifested at this time in my life.  It answered back immediately: "because of your belief in scarcity".  I also asked the dis-ease where the physical origins of this energy block - or holding pattern - were located in my body, and it responded by showing me the back of my heart.  I was working with a woman who is both a shaman and a neurologist during this particular exercise, and she reminded me that the back side of the body often holds the unconscious beliefs associated with each organ or energy center in the body.  Subsequently, I then decided to then ask that energy center if it would allow whatever was unconscious to become conscious (i.e. unblocked).  After a moment or two, I received this answer:  "THE LOVE IS REAL".

I didn't understand that message in it's entirety immediately, but my body responded by softening in such a way that convinced me that this answer must be exactly right.  Later that evening - in the middle of a Despacho Ceremony - I kept noticing feelings of the deepest kind of tenderness in my body.  This feeling of tenderness was connected to my own experience of love towards the many energies and persons that were being honored by this ceremony.  Spontaneously, I understood that what Spirt meant by "THE LOVE IS REAL" was that my own experience of love in my physical body is a real experience of Love.  At that moment, I could literally feel my heart pouring itself into every other cell in body, and I wept many tears for many hours out of this experience of profoundly loving overflow.

That night, I had a dream.  In the dream, I became aware of a feeling of deeply satisfying joy in my body.  As I went searching for the source of this joy, some kind of disembodied dream voice explained to me that "joy is also experienced on the inside".  Fortuitously, I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote down all that I could remember from the dream before falling back to sleep. During our lunch break the next day, I went outside to find a place to make "Sand Art" (another shamanic ritual involving reciprocal exchange with nature).  While gathering up some sticks I intended to use to enclose my sand art with, I happened to stumble upon this literal sign in nature that read "JOY":

As you may be able to see, I placed my sticks in a circle at the foot of this altar to JOY, and then began to clear away the leaves with the boundaries of the sticks.  Underneath the leaves, I found a small stump.  Upon uncovering this stump, I noticed that it was literally shaped like an anatomically accurate human heart!  See image:

When I turned the stump over, I discovered that the entire back side of this heart-shaped stump was covered in ICE!  The "back of the heart" was literally frozen over.  Immediately, I allowed myself to feel into that real experience of love I now believed to be available in my own body, placed my hand over the icy stump, and proceeded to send love and warmth to that frozen heart until I felt nothing but warm wetness underneath my palm.  At the exact moment I realized the thawing process was complete, the noon-ish sun shifted in the sky just slightly, spilling all of it's radiance onto my face, and casting a perfect shadow from the "JOY" sign right through the center of that heart-shaped stump.  I understood the tender message that the natural world seemed to be speaking to me in that moment, and allowed myself to become conscious of the real experience of joy in my physical body too.

Some moments later, I got up in order to walk away from this sacred space and ran into another literal sign in nature that read "PEACE":

I stood there gazing for at it for a moment, trying to honor the message that might be trying to reveal itself to me.  I felt peaceful, certainly, and could appreciate that this feeling of peace could also become an internal refuge.  But when I tried to walk away from this spot, I felt something pull me back toward it.  I looked all around the little meadow of trees, and only found one other sign:

In a single moment, I remembered (thank you Christian youth camp!) that there's a passage in the Bible lists the "Fruit of the Holy Spirit" in precisely this order:  LOVE, JOY, PEACE... Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.  I laughed out loud, feeling myself filled with gratitude for this newly enlivened teaching, as I suddenly understood in a new, deep way that they are ordered in this way for a reason.  I wondered how much of my life I had spent trying to master self-control in order to gain an experience of love (something that probably got reinforced by this same youth camp, unfortunately).  At this particular moment, however, I could see very clearly the grievous error in this way of thinking, and felt the grace that comes with an embodied understanding of how things could be different.  It seemed that Spirit had given me a living, breathing experience that would continue to help me understand that we must start with a belief in the immediate, experiential, available reality of Love, and everything else we value would flow forth from there.  

Mary Oliver says it this way: "You do not have to be good.  You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.  You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves". The rest will follow.

The God You Love Is Inside

This magnificent refuge is inside you.
Enter. Shatter the darkness that shrouds the doorway…
Be bold. Be humble.
Put away the incense and forget
the incantations they taught you.
Ask no permission from the authorities.
Close your eyes and follow your breath
to the still place that leads to the
invisible path that leads you home.

~ St. Theresa of Avila

Divine Mother

Perhaps poetry goes unwritten 

In Your name

Because wordless are your workings

Deeply held in the mysteries of the body

I feel Your whispers

When the Wind raises hair on my neck

Or the moon reaches into

The back of my heart

The dark Earth causes 

Me to weep with wonder

All sensation begins to feel like Your caress,

And all inner movement as searching for You! 

How is it possible to Love this much?

You weave everything into Love, Mother

By never turning your gaze away 

From me.

Unnameable, unknowable

Yet the source of all that is known

You are an Encounter!

The Whole experience of being belongs to You.

In the soft animal of my body, I find

You are Becoming as I become

Transformed into what has always

Been joined as One

There was never irreconcilable loss -

No true leaving;

Only forgetting

Your face is in everything.

The Serpent in the Garden

The Fruit of finding out -

We were never truly separated,

Nor banished from You

Only asked to look for you in darkness too.

I can see and hear and touch and taste and smell again!

Knowing there was never any reason 
to hide
And now, nowhere to run -

But Home.
Where I can find you Eternally
Deep inside the belly 
Of my own beating heart. 

-- Whitney Logan, 2.1.13

Sacred Spaces

Grateful: for ritual, for compassion, for safe spaces to do inner work, for grace, for creativity, for community, and for reminders to approach all of these light-filled qualities with the kind of humility that acknowledges their ever-present shadow.

- CG Jung Institute, 1.6.2013

Choosing Love

I read this excerpt from Lawrence Edwards the other day:

If you take what the Buddha and Christ said,
and all the great yogis, saints, sages,
mystics, and lovers of God,
it can be reduced to two words:
Choose Love.
There is nothing higher than Love,
nothing purer,
nothing more selfless,
nothing more powerful,
and it is present in every moment.
Choose Love.
In all times, in all places -
Choose Love,
for Love has already chosen you.

I believe that Love is the engine of the Universe, and that it's sole function is to produce more Love.  I also believe that "surrendering into Love" a choice... up to a point.  And yet, sometimes I think I resist really yielding (see blog post about Movement Theory) fully into Love in so many different situations because I'm afraid of what that experience of love will do to me.  I wonder if this might be true for most of us.  If so, maybe that's because we know that real love always requires personal transformation.  The timid, lazy parts of me then resist this surrender - in either big or small ways - precisely because I know that personal transformation comes at a price.

The people listed above in Edwards' example of those who "chose Love" lived radical lives.  Many of them gave up a comfortable, easy lifestyle because continuing to choose Love meant that they must. Love requires Love in exchange for Itself, and I suppose that none of us really know what our own Love for the world might look like for us personally if we were to fully choose It.  Choosing Love may actually be down-right world-destroying.... or, "the world as we know it"-destroying for each of us. Because Love begs this question of us:  What is your full potential?!  And if we're honest with ourselves, I think we'd all agree that that's a somewhat terrifying concept.  We risk becoming like seeds - each one of us having to allow our safe little shells to crack and tear themselves wide open so that the fertile of ground of Love might receive us, and change us into the fullest expression of our being.

The Buddha abandoned both extraordinary privilege and his own young family, Jesus knew he was going to die an excruciating and humiliating death, Mother Teresa gave up luxury for poverty, and others have sold Fortune-500 companies to sweep the floors of an Ashram.  Yet these same people have done remarkable things for humanity, and all of them have reported experiences of sublime ecstasy, unity, and peace.

I suppose there's only one thing we can expect:  To choose Love is both to risk and to gain everything.

I'm often reminded of something C.S. Lewis said about his character Aslan (the symbol of Divine Love in his fictional world of Narnia):  "Safe?  Who said anything about safe?  'Course he isn't safe. But he's good.  He's the King, I tell you".  I'd say the same is true of choosing Love.  It's GOOD. Just not safe.  And maybe I'm scared of that.

It Felt Love.

How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart

And give to this world
All it's
Beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being,

Otherwise
We all remain

Too

Frightened.

-- Hafiz

The True Origin of Courage

"From Caring Comes Courage". - Lao Tzu.

I recently heard someone describe the incredible new quality of love they were capable of experiencing towards their newborn daughter.  They went on to explain the ways in which they could tell they had been initiated into a capacity for love that was entirely different from what they had been capable of feeling before: "Before this, I think I simply hoped that I would have the courage to jump in front of a bus or a bullet for someone else.  Now I know I would".  Their words reminded me of the Lao Tzu quote at the top of this post, and also reaffirmed to me what I've been remembering lately:  It takes courage to care about something because we know that any experience of caring will both beget and require more and more courage from us as we continue caring for it.

Getting married was one of the experiences that helped initiate me into a deeper understanding of the connection between caring and courage, as it required me to relate to my intuitive sense that I was signing up for a lifetime of learning how to become both more courageous and more caring towards this person I was marrying.  I did not know what "for better or for worse" could or would look like, and I had no interest in being naive about the vows I was making either.  My willingness to be that conscious about the phenomena of marriage required the kind of courage that could only come from a very deep caring for the man I was going to marry, the relationship I was agreeing to enter into, as well as my own set of personal need-strengths and limits.  I think this honest reflection has helped both of us navigate the circumstances in which we've needed to become more caring and more courageous towards one another.  I don't doubt that this will ever cease, and I'm powerfully grateful for that -- even though I still don't know what "for better or for worse" might look like for us.

Collectively, I believe we value both caring and courage in ourselves and others because it's the pro-social glue that holds the human species together.  Ironically, we have often learned that caring and courage can also be socially dangerous at times.  Maybe you were the child on the playground that cared deeply about the other child who was being actively bullied.  If you let your caring dictate a courageous gesture, you might soon find yourself on the receiving end of the bully's aggression. Perhaps you had the courage to tell someone that you liked, wanted, desired, or needed them, and were consequently rejected or humiliated.  So we become defended against both caring and courage in order to protect what's left of our delicate little egos.  To still appear socially attractive, we may learn how to pretend to care, or how to practice things that look like courage (but involve no real risk to our personal sense of safety).

For example, I notice that I'm willing to navigate intensely difficult interpersonal dynamics and admit my own shortcomings when I actually care deeply for the other person and the relationship itself.  I'm also willing to spend precious time, energy, and resources on the things I genuinely care about.  It should be noted that the word courage comes from latin roots that further illustrates this connection to caring.  In latin, the word means something like "to speak one's mind by telling one's whole heart". If courage is about telling one's whole heart, it also sounds like an invitation for lots of gut-wrenching honesty with oneself and others.  In light of this, I've started to examine the sincerity of my caring by the measure of real courage I experience in relation to it.  If I discover that I don't care as much as I want to care, then I have an opportunity to examine the psychological defenses that are holding me back.  As someone who is devoted to the ongoing process of wholeness, I'm often acutely aware that we have to be first willing to feel the experience of our heart in order to then speak about it.  That's a pretty courageous task in and of itself, which makes me think that even "caring about caring" involves some spark of real courage.

Echoing Lao Tzu's original sentiment, the social scientist, TedTalk celebrity, and author of the Ordinary Courage blog, Brene Brown, says it this way: "vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage".  My conclusion:  I believe the only real choices we have is this non-linear relationship between caring and courage is whether or not we will be open towards our own heart-felt response to things.