What are we to do?

Many thanks to Shilo for yet another beautiful work of art she calls, what else, but: "Heart of Wisdom"

I've been away for a while finding many loose ends to tie up after my mother's death; combing through old pictures, her things and many memories. Gaining new insights into the life of the woman who is my mother and gleaning the lessons from The Heart of Wisdom she taught me about being a good person, about giving back to my world, about sharing my gifts with confidence,and a generous spirit with all who come into my life.

And then there is the 2008 political experience...I find myself pondering our situation here in America with the election process. I don't ever remember one so polarizing as this one. The new element in it all, the one that everyone is talking about, it seems is the Republican VP Choice. You know the one I refer to: One Sarah Palin. Wow! She mostly represents just about everything I don't like in a woman. That she has accomplished things that many women only dream of is not where I have a problem. I have lived with women my whole adult life that have broken down barriers of every sort, so it isn't what she has accomplished but what she thinks she has to do or be to prove her strength etc. that most concerns me. Then I realized when I thought about it, that this is a time when contrasts and opposites have come to the fore. What we have is this strong message of change in our world and then we have a very strong expression of resistance to change. This is not unlike what goes on inside of me or you or anyone else.

I don't know about you, but here's how I experience change in my life: At first I become aware through discomfort that something in my life needs to shift because of what I am doing or how I am going about it that is not working. I might first try to find out what it is outside of myself that is causing this need for change, but in the end, after much resistance, I find that it is something within me that needs to change. There might be a lot of fighting it, but in the end, I have to surrender and admit that change needs to happen within.

There is this one stretch of road that I travel on along the beautiful Oregon coastline on my way to work that always brings insight, a big aha, inspiration and prayerful amazing-grace type moments. It's as if the Angels, God, The Holy Spirit, what ever you want to call The Great Mystery, that chooses this spot on the highway to inspire and teach me. Today as I was driving to work, wondering what "we are going to do about the election" and all this wrangling, that the answer hit me: K, Love is the only way around this. So, I found myself surrounding both sides, and all the "major players," hell, even the American public and myself with the love vibration. I drew a gigantic heart around it all!

See, if I'm on one side of the equation and feel my view is the right view and that yours, if it is different than mine is the wrong view and we keep holding on to our respective "maps of reality," pulling in opposite directions, we will never go forward together, we will just be in an endless tug of war. I don't believe I could ever recognize something outside of myself, unless I also was familiar with it from within. So, if I reject a mean spirited mocking tone of voice coming from Sarah Palin, if I hear exaggeration and hyperbole coming from her, it's because I have had an inner experience that is meaningful to me. It is that shadow side and unloved part of myself I find unacceptable that I want to project on something outside of myself that I don't want to own. If I truly want change in my outer world and want to see it happening for the better outside of me, I have to create it within. The only way it will happen is to love and embrace the wounded unloved fearful part within. When true change happens in my world, it won't be because some hero comes in to save the day. I know who I want to vote for and who I resonate with. For me, the Obama/Biden ticket represents the change I want to see in myself and in the world around me: the Yes We Can be more! The McCain/Palin ticket represents for me the part of myself in need of embracing and loving; the part that resists the change out of fear, or comfort with the status quo. Today I saw the purpose of two sides of the same coin and I know what I am going to do about it for myself. The perspective we each have will make all the difference in how we experience our world. I do have to follow what my mother taught me and do my part to share my gifts and the heart of the woman I am with the world around me. I count on all of you to join me. Change what you can and love the rest in the Heart of Wisdom!