Greener Pastures and Silver Linings

Here's a thought experiment: Imagine a playing field, such as a soccer or football field. Now, at one end the playing field is a beautiful countryside with rainbows, beautiful flowers, amazing villages, children laughing, super-high-vibes--your happiest place. At the other end of the field are your worst nightmares--darkness, sadness, terror, injury, drama and dysfuntion. Now, go down onto the field. Which end are you closer to?

We all live somewhere on this dualistic spectrum--some days closer to the light end than the dark, and other days closer to the dark than the light. Within this dualistic mindset, is an aversion to the dark, and a longing for the light, and therein lies a trap of sorts.

By resisting the dark end of the spectrum, we expand it, and by longing for the light, we demonstrate how the light end of the spectrum is not what we are having, doing, or being. It is a sort of double jeopardy, where one end seems unattainable while the other seems to be continually biting at our heels. As Princess Leia of Star Wars said to the Imperial General, "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

We have been acculturated to deny and run from the darkness within ourselves, and like so many societal "solutions" to undesirable states and conditions, the more intensely we resist and deny the darkness, the more solid it becomes.

"Greener Pastures" are always "over there" somewhere away from where and what we are being right now. That "Silver Lining" is always behind those dark clouds, seemingly out of reach, representing a day of divine blessing that never seems to come.

What is easily forgotten, or overlooked, is that the "dark end" of the field could not exist without the light end. And if we find ourselves at the dark end of the field, it means there must be an opposing light end. The other unacknowledged truth is that within each moment at the dark end there exists a gateway to the light. We have only to make that choice to go there.

By getting hung up about "how dark it all seems", we expand it, make it greater than we are. We lose hope of ever getting to the light, and tumble further and further into that Dark End Zone. We stop looking at the light end, throwing away personal power in favor of "fate" or a rescuing "savior" that will make it all go away.

News flash: We are all our own saviors, and we save ourselves by choosing and committing to that light end of the field.

When there is pain, we must acknowledge that relief co-exists with that pain. We choose relief and thus begin the hero's journey out of pain. When there is the loss of a loved one, we must acknowledge that connection, oneness and love is co-existing with that sense of loss. When there are financial setbacks and poverty, there can only be such things because prosperity and abundance exist within those conditions. Just as with any problem, the solution exists within it.

I was sent a very special video by a friend that got me going on this--a talk by Miranda MacPherson. She speaks about the practice of non-duality being a frontal assault on everything we've decided we cannot be. Everything convinces us that we are not good enough, strong enough, smart enough or conscious enough to experience joy, grace and unconditional love in our lives. By fully embracing the entire spectrum of dark to light, and truly accepting and allowing both ends as eligible for unconditional love, we rise to the awareness that all is good, all is joy, and all is love. There are no excuses for our perceived weaknesses, as those are a denial of our strength. There are no excuses for our stupidity, as that points directly at our innate intelligence--how we learn and grow to appreciate our choices.

As we become inclusive of ALL of who and what we are--the entire spectrum of densities from that carbonized black goo to the glorius effulgent light of infinite being, we gain a mastery over our choices. We gain a truly deep appreciation for everything we've gone through across the entire spectrum of experience, for it has brought us to this place of true understanding.

We become free to run and jump and roll around anywhere we please on that Field, in the full knowing that no matter where we go, we are loved, we are cherished, and we are infinitely free.