Softness & Donald Trump

Political Disclaimer: I do not support the Trump administration, I do not support any government organization for that matter, I do not support violence towards other beings or the planet, I do not support an “us & them” mindset & staying soft is not an excuse for bad behavior.  Exercise discernment and practice personal accountability, if your actions cause harm you might want to take a look at that and see if you can change them.

I was listening to a podcast recently of a talk by the late Stuart Wilde.  If you don’t know who he is you should spend a little time checking him out, very interesting fellow, metaphysical author and ayahuasca proponent.  Anyway he was was confirming something that I have suspected for a long time now.  That when we stay soft and present in our hearts we will be free from harm.  When the world starts to fall apart and we feel surrounded by brutality and evil men if we stay within that place of softness we will be invisible to those wishing ill upon us.  This is meant metaphysically and literally, when the death squads come around if you stay soft and present they will likely drive right past you.  Another way to think about it is “intuition”, if you are soft & present in a dangerous situation you will know what the right thing to do is.

This concept is really poignant for the world right now, especially considering the state of American politics.  Many people are being terribly harmed by a capitalist fascist regime that runs our global economy.  People are rioting and protesting and demanding change and fighting “taking it to the streets” calling their representatives.  The language is all about fighting and resistance and wars on this that and the other thing.  But the thing is, the more divergent the two sides get from each other, the more fascist our government becomes and the more all inclusive the liberals become, the more the two sides sound exactly the same.  If you take the language out of context and just look at the words, both sides are saying the same thing, the people are roiling in fear.  When faced with unspeakable fear look it in the eyes, say “do your worst” and stay soft.  Another snippet from Stuart Wilde “if you encounter a snake and it wants to eat you, let it”.

Surrender into the soft space of your heart.

Fighting it isn’t going to work.  I don’t know how many facebook posts it’s gonna take for people to actually understand the meaning of the Einstein quote that problems cannot be solved with the same kind of thinking that created them.  I see that shit run across my feed almost every day followed by a “call your representative” “go to your local city hall meeting and demand blah blah blah” “put your pussy on your head and go get a parade permit”.  So you’re telling me to stop using the thought processes that created the system that gave rise to the system that is killing people all over the world, while at the same time calling to let them know I believe in their authority and their power to change things because if they don’t I’m gonna vote for some other rich asshole whose only authority comes from the fact I give it to him.  WTF, seriously?!   This is the sociopathic authorities  dream scenario, gas lighting of massive and elegant proportions.

Surrender into the softness of your heart.

The institutions that are harming people and passing laws and travel bans and all that crap only have power if we give it to them.  Power & authority are not something one goes out and acquires, it is granted by other human beings giving up their power.  It’s imaginary, it does not exist as such and yet we allow it to control and organize almost every aspect of our lives.

So lets imagine something else.

We must utilize a different way if we want a different world.

The way of softness, the way of presence, the way of unconditional love.  Beam love at people.  Give away your last meal, give away your warm winter coat, your last $20.  Stop voting, stop calling your damn congress person, stop protesting and stop resisting.  Believe in softness and love as the way through the darkness.

Yes there are people who wish harm on others, brutal unspeakable harm, but if you remain soft and inside your heart chances are that you will make decisions that remove you from harms way.  This is often called intuition.  Our heart has access to immense amounts of information, when we are still and listen to it, it will guide us to make the choices that keep us from harms way.  The rub is that we have to learn to listen,  learn to discern when the messages are coming from the heart and when they are coming through the fear matrix of our lizard or monkey mind.

Surrender, surrender, surrender.  Let it all happen without attachment.  Become soft and pliable.  Meditate on water sealed in a crystal ball, when the ball is shook up the water get’s roiled around and changes shape and moves according to the path of least resistance and when the ball is laid to rest it becomes still and placid again, totally unharmed.  Become water, soft buoyant and flexible.  Which force has the power here?  The shaker or the water that regained it’s form free of damage?

This is a process and I am not there yet but I am practicing and practicing and it is getting easier and the world is more beautiful every day because of it.  One of the great things about this is we don’t have to do it all the time, we can’t, we’re still learning how, but we can try and if we’re all trying all the time then when one of us fails there will be someone else giving, someone else being soft.  This is the beautiful nature of community, we do not all need to be at 100% all of the time, we can fall off the wagon because the wagon is part of a wagon train that is a circle the size of all of humanity so someone will be along shortly to pick us up and if most people are trying to be soft and unconditionally loving most of the time we might not even break any bones when we fall off.

Surrender to the softness of your heart space.

Some things that can facilitate this way of being:

Stillness helps, silence helps, being in nature helps. Psychedelic plant medicines most certainly help.    Cultivate non attachment, cultivate mindfulness.  Spend one minute, one measly 60 seconds, every day breathing softly and feeling gratitude or appreciation for something in your life, something that quickens your heart, that spreads a warm feeling across your chest.  Be kind to an animal or plant.  Try saying thank you to Donald Trump, say thank you to your moms cancer, say thank you to the cop who shot your son.  You have to mean it for it to work but just try it.  Lets do it together: “thank you Donald, I love you unconditionally as my fellow human being, thank you for showing me where there is a wound in my great big human family, without seeing it I would not be able to heal it.  I recognize the divinity that is in you & I see that it is the same as the divinity in me.  Peace be with you.”  If it’s hard start with something easier like the dog shit you stepped in or the asshole who cut you off in traffic.

Remember Rumi: “the wound is where the light enters”

The world is far stranger & older & wiser than we can possibly understand with our limited physical capacities  but we are not helpless or hopeless.  Our hope comes from the beauty & complexity of the natural world.  Our help comes in the form of a multi dimensional organ located in our chest cavity commonly referred to as the heart.  What we currently perceive as great tragedy and catastrophe may serve a higher good that we cannot yet see.  I understand, in my limited way, the draw of the darkness, the power & pureness of righteous anger, the poetic beauty of deep sadness.  Anger is a form of deep compassion & grief is a form of deep joy, they are there to show us how much we care about things, not to control our actions.  Feel everything, honor and acknowledge your despair & rage, but please, stay soft, become aware of your heart and take your actions from that place.

I’ll close this one with one of my favorite poems from Wendell Berry