We are that which we seek. When we polish away the residue left by external rules imprinted on us we find the ocean, the diamond, the love we seek, is right there, as us.
As a kid, I knew things. I think we all do. For me, most of it was beyond words, but it was the inner reality. My adult self tries to put words on those innocent and all-encompassing ‘knowings’ in an attempt to communicate, but that child still has the upper hand. She did not even think to communicate it all, she simply lived the natural awareness of connection to all things, all Beings. It was Self asking the unknowable question ‘who am I’, the equally unknowable All-ness that seemed to show up ‘outside’. But outside what? Outside me? It was all One Thing, so what was this ‘I’ that seemed to live in just one body? She asked the great, unanswerable questions that lead to enlightenment. I think she was my first teacher, first guru. Life was far from easy for her, but through it all, She Knew. She Knows. Fortunately she is still here in me, as the ‘me’ who is unmasking from the imprints of the world.
I am actively calling her to live in me more fully because without any fuss or training, she was deep in the sacred feminine. The culture, our family, the schools and our religion were constantly telling her to think and act in a different way – to replace that core reality with ideas and behaviors they could control and understand. It’s a very loving mistake the world makes, to try to include each other in the web of the acceptable and understandable. But it is on offer of inclusion in an agreed-upon illusion.
The deep feminine that is beyond that illusion is so needed in ourselves, our families, our communities, and our world. Yet it is not comfortable. It rattles things – dissolves constructs. The sacred feminine both gives birth to all things, and dissolves them. In me, one of the things it dissolved at an early age was my connection to the Episcopal Church. Our family history is steeped in the church, so walking away was a big thing.
At age 12 I was sitting in a pew listening to the minister offer an impassioned litany of all the requirements to be accepted by God and offered a seat in heaven I was horrified. Because I was none of the things he was listing. None. The rules were things like believing that God is only found if you say prayers from certain books, that you have to give a large amount of money to the church, you have to think a certain way. If you don’t do all these things, you go straight to hell. No gray shades. No reprieve for the people who have never even heard of Christ or who practice their own religion with deep devotion. One way only.
Clearly a dichotomy between inner knowing and outer rules. Powerful rules from the almighty Church. So that 12 year old had a crisis. From deep within, she knew that the Divine is equally in All Beings and loves all beings unconditionally and she knew that beautiful souls of all colors and religions and cultures were part of that whole. That they are all infinitely loveable. She saw that her heart was actually bigger and more compassionate than the church’s definition of God. How can that be? It is impossible. One cannot be greater than the whole. So the paradigm looks like this – choose the culturally safe route to safety, or walk away and into the unknowability of one’s own inner knowing? Risk going to hell or risk losing the Knowing.
I walked.
Still walking. It took me years to say the word ‘God’ again. Years to realize that I chose deep spirituality over religion. That these 2 things can be embedding in each other, but that for me at that point, they were diametrically opposed. I confronted my family and refused to ever go to the church again. I ended up spending Sundays and my free time in nature – where knowing is seen, included and natural. Where I was free to walk surrounded by the skirts of the Divine before I knew to call Her that. Free to come into the almighty pause of enlightening moments open to all of us. The pause between breaths. The sunset. Sunrise. Beauty before definition. The smile.
We are that which we seek. When we polish away the residue left by external rules imprinted on us we find the ocean, the diamond, the love we seek, is right there, as us.
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