In the aftermath of all that was lost in 2018 there is grief, but there is also so much space. Buzzing with potential. We vacillate between the void and the possibility and learn that they are one and the same. Many are feeling lost and let down. Alone and small in the face of so much injustice. It’s difficult to come up with a viable game-plan to overcome the opposing forces. It’s difficult not to succumb to a feeling of helplessness. I am wondering how true that feeling of helplessness is, and what might be necessary to override it.
I am noticing a resistance arising in me, and in many others around me. It is like an underlying current. The feeling is – I know that it’s up to me to do something, but I don’t believe I can. And if I dig a little further, I find that not only do I not really feel like I can, I also don’t really feel like I want to. Once again, I am face to face with a five-year old who lives inside of me. She’s wearing a shiny purple nightgown and insistent that her prince is coming, and he is going to save her. The world is scary, and she can’t do it herself. It is undeniable that she is part of me. She is part of me, and she is important, but there is something that I notice when I talk to her. I notice that I am not her. I notice that I am an adult, that I can explain things to her, that I have a different view, different capacities. I notice that I am braver and calmer, and I notice that I have an instinct to protect her.
It seems like we are in a collective moment of moving from children who want someone to do it for us, toward being adults that can provide for ourselves, but there is some invisible barrier stopping us from completing the passage. There is some idea of “it’s better like this”, or “I can’t” or “I don’t want to” that seems to be paralyzing our progress. There is something preventing us from really stepping into our power. For as free and simple as childhood may have seemed (and, in truth, I don’t believe it ever was) it can’t measure up to the power inherent in creating your own life.
It is a natural progression, to mature, and to move past the need to be taken care of. To be capable. To let go of the illusion of neediness. Are we there? Is that what this crazy place is? Is it possible that this shadow place is just a walkway that leads to our throne? That all the disappointment and outrage are just beacons to send us back home to ourselves? That they are there to show us that we are ready, and that we can?
What if you are capable of giving yourself everything you need? What if you are your great protector? Bestower of kindness? Relentless supporter? Wise guide?
What does it mean to grow up? What if Peter Pan is full of shit and actually growing up doesn’t mean to lose your soul, but rather to receive your power, to become yourself. Most of us walk around knowing that we are not at our full capacity, that we have something more to give – if only we could find it. Maybe this clinging to the hope that someone is going to save us is the thread that keeps us locked out of our own glory. That doesn’t let us occupy our throne.
We think that growing up is a bad thing. It means your light dims. It means that you succumb to the rules, accept a life that you don’t want and become rigid and pale, a lifeless shadow of your vital child-self. It means bills and taxes and responsibility. It means giving it all away and not having anything left for yourself. The death of imagination and fun and freedom. But is it true? Is that really what it is to be a grown up? Or is that a fable, a myth?
Is there not actually more freedom and life force in making your own choices and running your own life? Maybe it’s not at all limp and pale, but that we’ve lost so much faith in ourselves that we lack the imagination to envision a world in which we are our own saviors as being rich, and full, and incredibly free. What could feel freer than not needing anything from anyone else? What could feel freer than knowing that you have the power and the capacity to create a story unimaginably wild and dense and beautiful? What could feel freer than trusting yourself to take all of it on and to never compromise, never sell out, never fall out of alignment? How would it be to really trust yourself?
This is what is being asked of us. We are being faced with a great let-down, a colossal failure, the absolute abandonment of beneficence. When faced with the abandonment of our guardians we have two choices; to embrace our orphan hood or to become our own parents.