Welcome the Thrashing . . .
Speaking recently on the COVID-19 pandemic as a rite of passage, Roshi Joan Halifax observed that we are moving from separation into the threshold phase of this transition. Threshold shares its root with the word thrash. Throw. Thrash. Throughput. Thoroughfare. . . A life characterized by unrelenting churn and busyness, a ceaseless throwing myself into, onto and over tasks and people in order to win approval, demonstrate worthiness, make a case for lovability. Like many Western women, I have been an excellent student of capitalism, a mostly compliant participant in patriarchy, a sometimes unknowing yet almost always complicit practitioner of racism. I have put on the ways of the White supremacist culture in which I have been raised as mindlessly as my bedroom slippers, easing my speech and habits into its well-worn form. Perfectionism, urgency, individualism, progress is bigger and more, quantity over quality, power hoarding, and a right to comfort. All fits neatly within and serves the status quo of capitalism, the Deus Ex Machina before which we sheepishly pay homage. Blanket the body in numbness. Reduce the volume on intuition. See the other as means to an end. Do more. Produce more. Achieve more.
Until the question, “WHY?” screams through the universe, reverberating like a nuclear bomb. My motives are on the threshing board, assumptions thrown up against ideological walls, shaken and frisked violently. Feelings tumble out of pockets. Habits loosen, precariously clinging by frayed threads. Dazed eyes regain focus on what and who really matter. Internal organs settle more comfortably inside, my heart returning to rootedness in connection, care, intuition. Skin, once stretched taut across lined forehead, wrinkled in furrow brow, pulled tight against coiled muscle, now becomes a soft span of worn jersey settling comfortable on relaxed bones. Breath deepens. Heart opens, extends.
WHY gives way to HOW? How do I want to be as the planet tilts uncomfortably on its axis, dislodging me and others from unquestioned comfort, pushing others into profound suffering. How’s a to be, thrown on the threshing board within this tilted terrain, seems equally important as what’s a being to DO.
Metamorphosis. Align imaginal cells. Dream-vent a world beyond exploitation, othering, frenetic busy-ness with little room for stillness and the vast wisdom available within it.
Leave behind the throwing.
Invite the thrashing.
