Grab the Truth

The current media coverage about our economic crisis centers solely on an external "bailout". As an individual citizen, I have no impact on the strategy formulation nor action implementation. Yet my life will be ultimately impacted in unknown ways, as well as the lives of my children and likely my grandchildren before anything close to "normal" returns. Where is my personal power? Do I have any option other than going along with what the administration and Congress put into play?

My friend Kara shared the most extraordinary example of personal power on her Mother Henna blog. Answering her summons to jury duty seems to me to have been a Hera's Journey deluxe. Day one brought this response:

"But, honestly, I felt so victimized and dis-empowered, that I was barely coherent and by the time they took us back to the holding room while judge and attorneys made their decisions, I was in all-out tears. A kindly older gentleman, a fellow juror, tried to approach and comfort me. He said something about how we can't fight the system and sometime things just can't be changed."

How many times every single day do we receive that same message. Resistance is Futile, Just Go Along, You Have No Choice. But there are those who do manage to resist, to block out the thundering drumbeat of conformity and hold tight to personal truths. Kara did exactly that:

"The morning of day two, I sat squished in a seat, next to another of the hundred strangers, all squished in their seats in the holding room. Suddenly a thought occured to me. I am a Reiki master and teacher. And there was absolutely nothing nailing me to that chair. I gathered my things and got up. I began looking around for a spot where I could take off my shoes, sit cross legged, and begin to do Reiki. I found a piece of rug near the entrance of the holding room. I sat down. I began doing Reiki on myself. At first that was my only intention. To calm and center myself. But someone walked by me, and she looked stressed out completely. I thought to send a bit of Reiki with her. And then I looked at the floor. This is the floor that hundreds of thousands of people summoned to jury duty would walk across as they were herded to check in with the office staff. I began to ground Reiki into the floor itself setting out an intention that every person whose feet touched this floor in the past, present, and future would be blessed and might walk in peace."

Please do read the rest of Kara's post. She shows how one person, even in the midst of the most accepted, rigid Power Over structure we have in our communities today can navigate through the situation not as a victim but as a personal power point for her own values.

This notion of distilling a chaotic experience into a focused channel of power is further defined by Starhawk in her posts about the riot control at this year's Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Didn't hear about those? Me either, which is very scary. Sometimes, the burden carried by those few who are speaking for the many can be lightened by a surge of caring sent by the many. The non-violent protesters in St. Paul had very little such support as most of us had no idea they were there. And yet, they walked forward with what they knew to be true:

"The march heads up the street alongside the Capitol lawn, and then tries to turn across one of the bridges leading into downtown. The police move in, and block us.

There's a tense crowd of people on the bridge and filling the intersection. Around us are police in full riot gear and gas masks. There's also a group of bike cops, looking slightly underdressed in shorts and gas masks. They've brought in the Minnesota specials-a line of snowplows across the bridge. On them are perched black-masked cops in heavy leathers holding thick-muzzled rifles that shoot rubber bullets.

The energy is unfocused. Nobody knows quit what to do. It could all fall apart, in a moment, with the cops attacking the crowd, or it could remain a standoff for a long time. I am softly drumming, not quite sure what to do, when a young, African American woman with long
curls and a ring in her lip comes up and says, "Do you know how to sing, 'Aint' Gonna Study War No More?"

I shift the beat, we begin singing, and soon gather a small chorus that forms around us. A tiny, round, young black woman in spectacles steps in front. She has a large voice, and she takes over as lead singer. The chorus grows and a space opens up in the center of the intersection, that is soon filled with riders on bikes, circling around and around, counterclockwise. A young man turns a cartwheel. A clown on stilts appears, out of nowhere, and joins the ride. Suddenly, it's a circus in the street. The mood shifts and becomes almost festive.

My own mood has shifted, too. I've been practicing a more Buddhist-style meditation lately, just watching my breath in odd moments and being present to what's happening. I'm doing that now, breathing and drumming with the bikes and the song and the riot cops, and for no rational reason whatsoever I feel a surge of pure joy."

A surge of pure joy, the giving of Reiki for the blessing of peace to all who pass by ~ do these changes pay the rent or stop unconstitutional legislation? Perhaps not. But the day's reality for these two women became something wholly different than an experience of hopeless unimportance.

My personal story does not end with being fired. The rent will be paid, the cows will be milked, new strategies for income will be implemented. But there are two pieces of truth that ground me solidly outside the drama of Power Over. One truth sleeps peacefully in their room ~ my daughters have watched my joy in working at the clinic bombed into oblivion, my trust in my own judgement of character take another nasty nosedive, my struggle to accurately assess my self-worth, and the scramble to remain sheltered and fed. Reality for them is not global, national, nor even as small as the financial viability of one particular business in our community. Power looked like the great big breath, the gathering around the table, the teary but calm question, "Okay, here's what we've got to work with. Who has suggestions about what we do next?"

The first truth was the gift I give forward. My girls are becoming young women who know that Power doesn't always look powerful. It's okay to feel small and scared and alone because sometimes that is exactly what you are. Power isn't about holding all the cards or being able to shop your way out of a corner. It's about the willingness to look at a bad situation right in the face and decide if you did the best you were able to do. Power grows from all the many times you do this until it becomes a glowing core that can bend and change and admit mistakes and hold steady trusting your own honesty.

The second truth is the grace I've been gifted with and he also sleeps peacefully right now. In this window of cosmic Balance, a pageant of Male/Female, Power Over, Dictator/Victim blasted into my reality. I was able to recognize the abuse because it was so blatantly different from the relationship with which I have been blessed. It is not easy being married, no matter what your partnership looks like - it's the smallest and perhaps most often abused equal rights challenge available. It is entirely intimate, comprehensive, constant and rarely monitored by professional regulators. For me, power looked like Jeff wiping away my tears and saying, "Lisa Elaine, who are you? What have you got to work with?" Our vulnerability is external - a set of facts we don't often have control over. Our strength is anchored in truths that seem small in their very personal impact but with which we choose to move forward even when we don't know what will happen next.

For better or worse, I am adaptable - I've almost always got one more way of doing things that hasn't been tried and might just work. I have a strong task perspective - if a job must be done, I rarely consider the "status" of the work but get on with the small steps necessary for the big picture. I also cannot help hollering at big stone heads, even if it is only in my stories. Justice does matter.

On this Fall equinox, what is one truth about you? How can you give that one truth to yourself today? How can you give that one truth to the world today?