I am one who is made of a message. Not a singular slogan around which a queendom could be raised, but a way of being which is a country of refuge for me and an invitation for others: an embodiment of possibility. Though I have often felt lonely within this country, I have never left the country of my being and I never will. The truth of my being, and the message that my life is which is emergent from that truth, is my way, my home, and my essence. It's beautiful, and sometimes difficult, and it came with a responsibility: woven into the cells of my being is an indomitable impulse to walk with people into the mirror of this country as it exists within themselves and support the awakening of the truth of their own being. To welcome them home to Truth, Self, World, and Soul.
Being blessed with the power of sound - in word and song - I have engaged this mission frequently through the realm of language and, specifically, information. I have been sharing information about the arc of our trajectory as a species since I was 15. That's when I really began to understand the scope of the illness and madness of our collective situation, the extent of our insanity and disconnection, and the devastation of our way of being in our own lives and with the world. I've been speaking up and speaking out for 30 years at this point. And I always will.
Now, however, I have come to a fundamental crossroads. A new question is catalyzing an alchemical shift within the very energetic foundations of my way of being, and that question is this: "How do I fully embody my truth as a messenger in the world as it is right now?"
I deeply love this inquiry. It invites me into realms of nuance and artistry that are delightful, enjoyably demanding, and worthy of the profound wisdom and energetic capacity that I have cultivated in the course of my life.
And the inquiry comes from this place: since the beginning of this current global situation I have been naming and sharing about the staggering problems in how this is being handled, managed, represented, and exploited. I have shared articles and videos, sought out new ones on the same material when people have poo-pooed the sources, had more conversations than I can count, commiserated with like-minded allies and contended with differently-minded others, been shadow-banned, mocked, unflatteringly labeled, lost my temper, lost my composure, lost my hope, and found it all again and carried on speaking. What I have witnessed over the course of this year has been the steady tightening of a conceptual framework over the minds of an incredibly diverse array of people, from the most liberal of leftists to the most conservative of righties (whatever the hell those things even mean, but you get me): I have seen critical thinking and discernment progressively dwindle and finally be completely flushed down the toilet in more instances than I can count, and lately by hearing from many different places in the span of a few weeks "I know there's some sketchy stuff about it, but I'm ok with it and willing to be part of the experiment, especially if it means I can 'get back to normal'."
The first time I saw that I sat and stared at the sentence for a long time. That changes everything for me.
I always thought that if information were shared in a way that could be received, if it were deep, honest, true, insightful, and "factually sound" in whatever way was appropriate to the information, that people, in receiving it, would respond to it appropriately. And by appropriate, I mean in the most life-honoring, sovereign, and intelligent way possible. After 20 years of trying to get people to pay attention to or care about our devastating impact on life and the planet as a civilization, I'm not sure why I still thought that was the case, but until a month ago, I did.
Now I realize that that's not so.
Author and teacher Stephen Jenkinson once said in an interview, in regards to reading the news, that "the information itself is a stillborn proposition". And that's true. Information, when delivered at such staggeringly overwhelming volume as information currently is, is something that people mostly filter out more than they receive. Especially if their beliefs - the worldview that gives one a place to live in ones imaginal and emotional body - don't have room or welcome for that information. I completely understand this, and I do it too. I phase out a lot of things at this point because modern "civilized" life, as it stands, on even the sweetest day, is enough to melt the system. But when the information that I'm offering has to do with staggering corruption and the wonton endangerment of the entire population on behalf of a grossly manipulated and misrepresented "risk", and people refuse to even engage with what I'm sharing in a curious or contemplative way, this reaches into the bedrock of my understanding of what it is to be a messenger and starts to do some serious alchemy. Were I to allow myself to land in the fear, anger, frustration, and despair that is so readily available right now, it would do serious damage. But I do not allow for that, though when those waves come through I tend them. Instead, I listen. And, drawing upon the depths of my cultivation as a Soul and a Being, I engage the alchemy of it all.
And what is revealing itself to me now is this: to be a medicine woman, wisdom keeper, healer, teacher, sovereign, and messenger in this time is to be dancing on the surface of the sea with creatures fantastical and ghastly, gorgeous and terrifying, benevolent and malicious, and I must be quite the dancer to dance well in this place. To embody Soul and live truth in this time requests and requires the deepest sensitivity and attunement to the heart of the world-beyond-the-world from which the manifest world springs up in thought, idea, belief, form, flesh, and action.
Do you understand me?
We cannot meet this time with pre-conceived ideas or pre-developed ways that came from other times and worked in other times. We are in a new time, and this in a new world. Wherever we go from here, we will not be "returning to normal". Normal, in all of its previous beauty and madness, is gone, and we are between stories here. We are in the death of one story and the burgeoning of the other, drawing the pattern on the butterflies wings from within the dissolved body of the caterpillar in the cocoon of transformation. We are not on solid ground, and the entire country of our collective story is in the liminal.
This is a time of profound power and possibility. And a time of profound danger.
This is a time of initiation.
For those who aspire and endeavor to embody the greater possibilities latent within our human experience, empowerment tempered with humility must lead. It is a profound art to embody this quality. Anyone who does has a gravity: anyone without gravity hasn't got it yet. It is a time to hold fast to the truth that we have grown a deep knowing of in our bones without binding ourselves into intellectual ideas or dogmatic concepts, all the while honoring that we are just one facet of an enormous living body that is transforming from one thing into something entirely different, and that we are here to serve that as beautifully, heartfully, gracefully, and powerfully as we are able to.
That's what being a messenger means to me now: to always be listening deeply enough to be speaking from Soul. To live rooted in and speaking my Truth without being mired in my ideas. To greet every embodied Truth around me with honor and respect, and respond to it from wisdom and empowerment. To live sovereign, letting my deep knowing guide me while always letting the unfolding of this vast story teach and transform me as well. To be strong, but permeable. To be fierce and gentle together. To lead with heart and soul instead of mind and idea.
I am finding this journey, though sometimes stained with the rich light of grief and sorrow, exquisite. It draws me into the true power of my being and aligns me with my current in the cosmic ocean of experience in a profound and genuinely beautiful way. It demands that I become what I actually AM, and that I do that beautifully and with powerful grace.
This is my truth. This is my voice. This is my learning. This is my way through the greatest initiation we have shared.
I pray that it serves.
MW
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