I escaped recently to a place otherworldly, and light-heartedly pretended I had left the planet earth. It felt right to briefly deny the enormity of the world’s grief.
I so adequately unplugged that weekend that I didn’t know another madman had murdered so many innocents in Pittsburgh.
But even through my attempted oblivion, I couldn’t escape. Deep in the shattered heart of the Navajo Nation I saw people living in homes not fit for insects while Halliburton crawled unchecked over the beautiful and sacred land, scavenging the earth to feed our habitual comforts. So much pain there. More trauma than I can fathom, and I’ve had my fair share.
And yet, in the face of that sadness was Mother Nature’s beauty so majestic and primordial it rendered me mute and brought me to my knees. Beauty so ancient it could never be diminished or threatened by the darkness that exists in humanity. The frequency of blinding sunlight, where fear can’t live and wounds don’t fester…
In the most beautiful place I have ever seen, I found myself at a dead end, wandering a series of sandstone caves, only to find the skeletal remains of a wild horse inside. Only a mountain lion would yield the power to drag it there.
From bliss to terror.
The contrast of those two Truths felt like a partnership somehow. A sacred contract.
But the fear wore off and the bliss remained. The bliss was real, the fear wasn’t.
I left there with a knowing that an impervious core is within all of us. We’re not meant to escape the pain. Because when we stop hurting for each other, we’ve lost, game over.
We’re not free to abandon our hearts or the hearts of others. We keep finding a way to shine, we keep loving, until all the fear is gone, all the wounds are healed, all the tears are dried. We keep loving until the concept of violence is only alive through the teachings of ancient history.
Love isn’t afraid. Love is real.
Leave a Comment