I’ve written a good bit lately about the challenges we are all facing. Even though today is Christmas, the tension seems to be mounting and some folks appear to be stumbling on the path (notice I said appear!). So I want to talk about how to keep going in spite of our challenges– to move through them and make progress toward our goals.
We have a special role here on this little blue planet we call Earth– as spirits having a human experience, we are also and forever Spiritual Warriors. Therefore, like any other warriors in any other trenches in any other wars, we’re supported by our High Command– a bountiful and benevolent Universe. What do we need? Better rations? Medical supplies? Improved radio equipment? Or just instructions for the next piece of action? We have only to contact High Command and ask. It’s all there for us. The only thing we are required to do in exchange is… you’ve got it! Keep on fighting. Sometimes we’ll lose a battle. Sometimes we’ll win one. Sometimes it’ll look like a tie. But this is not about winning or losing conflicts with some external enemy– this war is one we wage with the fearful part of our human selves. Why do we fight? Because we have a job to do here, and that is to become part of HIgh Command’s support system for other spiritual warriors who haven’t figured out that’s what they are yet.
Yesterday one of my students and fellow warriors sent me a link to this wonderful article about the Indian Goddess Ahkilandeshvari– whose name means “Always Broken Goddess.”
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a-pile-on-your-bedroom-floor-is-a-good-idea-julie-jc-peters/
Now, I don’t channel goddesses– at least not yet– and I’m not particularly trusting of crocodiles. But I like Julie Peters’ explanation of how the Always Broken Goddess keeps recreating herself, climbing back on that crocodile, and carrying on no matter what. I like it because I know it’s possible. I know we can do this, because I’ve done it myself and survived.
Right now, this very day, some of us are dealing with health problems. Some are challenged in their relationships with others (which can seem even more distressing during the holidays). Some are facing what they believe may be the destruction of their fondest hopes and dreams– a perfect job, an academic degree, a much-coveted move to a new and more exciting locale. It may look like we will never heal, never find the perfect partner, never get where we most want to go in our lives. But you know what? That’s just an illusion. Everything we want to be is what we already are, and we already have exactly what we most want and need. All we have to do is get up off the floor, gather those little pieces of ourselves, climb back on that crocodile, and look around.
Ahkilanda shows us, through her own resiliency, that we are actually indestructible– no matter how “broken” we may feel. And from the back of the crocodile, there’s a whole new world of possibilities to be seen.