A friend of our Circling community chose to be Euthanized last week at age 33. This is shocking for many particularly as his issues were in the area of mental health. Our community has come together in such a rich way to process grief, confusion, even anger.
His funeral is tomorrow in his home country of Holland. I just came from one of many groups geared toward being with his passing both before and after he left. One thing it definitely does for me, makes me even more thirsty to live.
I am about to go to Malibu to boogie board, one of my favorite experiences. One person asked me is it not too cold. Yes it can get very cold.
Another. Alone? Yes, alone. Another, isn’t it dangerous? No, not for me.
Yet here is what happened in this body; a wave of rage passed through the body hearing that and again yesterday in a group. Let’s live people I want to scream! Let’s live and dance with death if necessary rather than living quiet lives of desperation trying with all our might to avoid any hint of danger. For me that is not living.
His funeral reminds me of the last funeral I was at many years ago. The funeral was in Austria, a man who had died in a motorcycle accident at age 44. We walked from the church uphill to the cemetery in a long procession.
It was maybe two miles and rather steep yet we were together. It is the only funeral I have been to where we actually threw dirt on the coffin. I can feel the earth in my hand remembering this.
My young daughter was with us and I wondered how she was experiencing this moment. I heard the thud as the dirt hit the coffin and I felt a surge of life force asking me to live. I feel it now Wim in honor of you.
I would like to live more consciously, more authentically, more lovingly. I am just coming out of some very dark energy that seemed to rob me of my very life force. I know many are caught in tremendous fear and can feel paralyzed by it.
What does it take to move beyond fear and choose love? This is a question that lives in my heart always in as many ways as I can discover. I think I felt such rage as I was questioned by my choice to boogie board alone as yes so much of this life takes tremendous courage, to step out of the familiar to risk something new. Yes it takes courage to go alone to Malibu and to boogie board just because I love it.
Yes, adopting a child from Guatemala, traveling around the world twice with someone I had just met, quitting a secure high paying job all takes TREMENDOUS courage. Will we please support others’ choices to expand and take risks rather than question them and give fuel to doubt? I feel profoundly grateful to my friends who support me in my courage, not in my fear, in my adventures and risk taking, not in my playing safe. I have heard it said some people try to live like stealth bombers, not being seen or heard, undetectable by radar, making no waves.
Others choose to follow their vision wherever it may lead, no matter how much fear or even terror it brings up. I have played on both sides of the fence. And, I admit, with my own child I have often offered caution, wanting to ensure safety, not wanting her to take risks.
Yes, I can own that even though it drives me bonkers when others do it to me. Irony. Life is inherently risky.
Will we choose to stay as safe as possible even if it does not feel fully alive? What I have seen in myself and others is when we choose to follow our own direction and aliveness, it can take tremendous determination and bravery. We may have to buck the mainstream, risk our sense of external belonging to meet our own internal direction. Yet it is our own inner knowing that is the radar that points us to True North.
There are many forces such as mass media that would prefer we stay focused on separation and even fear. I have it that it is true where attention goes, energy flows so the last thing we want is to be glued to sources of fear. Yet also we will continue to attract that which we fear until we no longer fear that which we attract.
So I need to face my own activation/trauma and get past my reaction being triggered when others point out what I could be afraid of. I have it that ultimately the things of form will not satisfy the deepest longings. We must each walk our own path to find our way Home to our Being.
Many are feeling increasing outer chaos as more foundational structures collapse. To create the new, the old foundations must be stripped away. Let’s come together in community, in coming to unity to create the new.
Let’s support each other in living our one authentic life. It is time to say yes to our own inner Knowing..
