Re: Our Sunday Meditations.

I was musing on how “scared” is an anagram of “sacred,”  (which are, in turn, cognates for Fear and Love), when I came across this:

Notice that the word “alchemize” is used.

From there I segued to a website, www.scaredandsacred.com, run by Michelle Hubbard, a “transformation specialist.” I especially appreciate her phrase, “Let’s be SCARED and SACRED together.” In other words, no matter how courageous, how open hearted we become, we are also vulnerable. In fact, the more open-hearted, the more vulnerable to others.

Indeed, I can remember sitting in a tipi with elderwomen of a Native tribe in California, with one of my young relatives. I was there to accompany her on some kind of training, though I no longer remember what it was. This was at least 15 years ago, maybe more. In any case, what was burned into memory is that when it was my time to speak (each of us was to say a few words to encourage our young charge), and spoke of going around the world with an “open-heart,” I was immediately shut down by the Native elders. “NO! She needs to keep her heart closed, until she knows she can trust someone.”

Though I’ve long pondered this warning, I simply can’t, don’t, won’t go along with it. In fact, what I’ve noticed is that as long as my heart is open, with the unlimited love of the universe flowing through and lighting my way, then the universe protects and nourishes my sacred path.

Indeed, what I notice on my daily walks with puppy Shadow, is that as I lift mine eyes to directly contact the soul of another through his or her eyes, at that exact moment a strong, nearly overwhelming current runs between us; or better yet, through us. We reach for, and swim within, the frequency of Love together. I’d say that, at this point, approximately 80% of my fleeting encounters are of this nature. Each one energizes me enormously! So grateful.

This is NOT to say that I don’t have a “shit-detector.” Indeed, it’s a mile-long by this time! After nearly 79 years I’ve had my share of experiences — some of them over a year long! — which turned out to be NOT what my idealistic self had hoped, expected, longed for. Looking back, I recognize: I was taken in, not by another, but by my projection upon that other. Rather than noting unconscious attitudes within myself that I disliked and needed to alchemize, I projected them out, rendering the interpersonal situation ripe for conflict, drama.

So, to me, the key is to continuously recognize that my conscious self is but the tip of a deep iceberg, hiding an enormous unconscious wealth that, unless I work on constantly moving into relationship with its contents, I will create conflict in the outer world.

That unconscious, underwater wealth is sacred. And the extent to which I am “scared” of what’s “down there,” IS the extent to which I am attracted to alchemizing it into Love.   

As I used to say to myself, back in my cautious ’20s: “Whatever I’m both afraid of and fascinated by, that is what I must do.” And then, as a corollary to this principle, added a year or so later: “Just try not to make the same mistake twice!” Which is of course, impossible. We learn by consciously recognizing the patterns we have created with our behavior. And a pattern is created only when we have made the “same mistake” at least twice.