A rainbow is a spectrum

I love a rainy Sunday. I love a rainbow with my tea. I love right place, right time magic.

These moments of peace and beauty feel wonderful and sometimes allow me to feel what has been bubbling underneath and rising to the surface over the last weeks.

I might both overcomplicate and oversimplify some things as I try to work out what is going on, how I feel about it, and what matters most. I pre-forgive myself for not always getting it right.

For 15 years, I’ve lived here at the end of a rainbow. I’m blessed to discover myself and learn from this place. The gold I find here is more valuable than money.

[Also, I live here because I’m privileged in a way I didn’t earn or deserve more than anyone else to receive equity from generational wealth that was afforded more easily to my ancestors by the oppressive systems of colonialism and white supremacy.]

I live at the edge of a small bay that is part of a vast bay that teaches me about breathing in and out, rising and falling, waxing and waning, clarity and pollution, smooth and choppy, yes and no.

I say I “own,” when people ask, but I realize daily that I don’t own anything. No matter what banks, lenders, officials, laws and documents say, the idea that we own or control land, water, air, or anything is a serious misunderstanding of how the natural world works and what truly matters.

We’ve leaned in way too hard to the worship of “owning” because … colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy… and all systems that are all part of the same sick web created to have a “set it and forget it” culture of oppression and exploitation for elite profit under mass illusion and denial.

People can belong on land, but land can’t belong to people. That feels true to my heart, but I honestly don’t have the courage at this time to divest from the reality I currently inhabit. Where would I go? Who would I be? Who would be there with me? How do I make the transition? What kind of life is available outside of this system.

We can spend millennia fighting for control and ownership … and see how that works out if we survive.

Are we fighting for the right to exist as our full selves and be allowed to live without persecution? Who gets to define freedom and persecution? Are we fighting to hold on to privilege that we believe we’ve earned or deserve more than others? Are we fighting for the right to exploit others for our own benefit and comfort because otherwise it would be too hard and too uncomfortable to live? Are we fighting because we believe that’s what our higher power wants us to do?

I want to fight when I see people hurting other people. I want to fight when someone hurts my feelings, my ego, or my pride. I want to fight when I see people taking advantage of other people. Being a fighter tears me up inside – both meanings of “tears” apply.

I actually don’t want to fight anyone at all. I don’t wish to be a better fighter. Is there a good way to fight? I would love to love every one. I don’t have answers on how to do this, just many messy attempts. Maybe all of life exists in embracing the messy attempts.

How many beings will need to die so a few can have the illusion of ownership and control that they must constantly manipulate and fight to keep. How many must be distracted, misled and destroyed so they don’t notice what’s happening until it’s too late? How many ways will we imagine to convince people they are powerless and unworthy of love?

I have no answers, I just know what I observe often feels deeply misguided. We’re looking for love in all the wrong places.

I can’t address these thoughts without seeing my own wrongness, my own hypocrisy, my own ignorance and my own privilege. I can’t find words or create sentences that feel true enough. I ask for wisdom and then immediately complicate it with my scrambled mind that tries to meet the needs of everyone else, but in self-serving ways. I understand the willingness to feel unglued and untethered in order to see all parts of something and understand it more deeply.

Why are my goals sometimes to own, buy, achieve and amass? Who can teach me another way to survive if I want to adopt other goals? Do I even need goals?

Should I tune in to the news or tune in to trees? Should I spend time watching social media or watching water and clouds? Should I ride the rollercoasters or ride the wind?

Somehow it’s yes, and both, with a prayer for balance and boundaries. It’s like the bay teaches me. Take it in, and let it out. Learn and follow the rhythms that have evolved with the earth we live on and find a place of reverence for my part in it all, for all the parts I love most, and for all the parts I can’t begin to understand.

Today I gaze lovingly at trees with raindrops falling towards me from their colorful leaves. I feel seen by the drops that fall on my head. I can often sense an energetic match for my loneliness in trees. Shining their unique, magnificent glory every moment for years while many pass by without a second glance. But then there are those who come to revel, to breathe in and out, to sit for undefined periods of time in connection.

Trees breathe in my desperation and release it like a prayer in the wind.

And what is my desperation? It’s a prayer that we could all see ourselves as we truly are and then be brave enough to be in the world that way. What if our goal could be to live together in a way that healed each other’s and our own trauma rather than actively perpetuating it and doubling down on it. What if we valued and upheld systems of support instead of systems of oppression.

Am I naive? My dream is not unfounded based on my experience so far in my life. Who am I to say what’s possible. I must dream of a better way to make it bearable.

It seems that so many in positions of power believe that it’s not profitable to care about people and invest deeply in healing and systems of support and care. There is so much red tape and complex infrastructure around getting tiny, insufficient amounts of help and support even for very dire circumstances. The inequity has trickled down for so long that the needs of so many people seem insurmountable – let alone the damage to our environment and the inhabitability of our planet.

Sometimes caring deeply about other people feels overwhelming and confusing to me. I can collapse into a place where I don’t know where I end and they begin. Awareness and maintenance of my boundaries is a very worthy practice for me to tend to always. Making smaller, more personal gestures of kindness and love work best for me. One on one experiences of getting to know someone and understanding the ways we are different and the same. It takes time and dedication, it’s a labor of love. This feels mutually nourishing, restorative and kind. Possibly not enough to make a difference, but it’s what I can do in a good way at this time.

Sometimes the only way to cope is by numbing out and dissociating. We are constantly being offered and sold are ways to numb and distract ourselves. This compounds the hardness of hard things endlessly.

I feel so desperate to want to believe in this healing world that I am sometimes vulnerable to those trying to sell this reality to me. The sellers often know this and prey on our pain points. It perpetuates the trauma while claiming to heal it – it makes healing feel like gaslighting and then sometimes “healing” feels unsafe.

My friend told me that healers are people who are healing themselves. I love that and remember it often.

What I can do is to know myself, know my own healing, and understand what truth and clarity feel like in my body. I can see the game as dangerous or I can see it as my sacred journey. I can see others as threats or I can see them as fellow humans doing their best to have (or not have) all their feelings.

I can look in too deeply and fall in the deep end, I can spend my life treading water, or I can decide to swim to the shore and let myself be supported by the earth.

I try to live in between overcomplicating and oversimplifying in a manner of contemplative peace. I’m a spectrum still learning how to be a spectrum all the time. A rainbow is a spectrum. I love that.

I wish you a beautiful, peaceful and happy Sunday. 🙏🏽