Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Upside of Taking Things for Granted......

.... if there is such a thing. And I think there is.

We take certain basic things for granted. The Sun will rise tomorrow. Air for breathing, for example. We assume that our hearts will still be beating the morning after the night before, when in trust we fall asleep.... into that profoundly vulnerable place; that place of utter defenselessness.

We assume things, and we must in order to feel safe. If we didn't, we'd go stark raving bonkers immediately. Everything would be dangerous, if not deadly.

So that covers the basics. Yes, we take those for granted. And then there are the other things, like food and shelter, which we in the privileged cultures also take for granted. Not that we don't work our arses off to maintain these things. The fundamentals. Paying rent. Utilities. Taxes. Putting food on table and keeping roof over head, not to mention making sure we have enough money to pay the vets bills. Etc, etc. Finding meaning in work is at an even higher lever and not all of us are so fortunate. But we try.

Still there are other more subtle things we take for granted in the realms of the heart and which have to do with with the intricate threads woven between people over time, who love one another. This is a more delicate thing. At a certain level, if we don't trust with that huge leap of faith that the other (friend, lover, parent) will be there no matter what, then we live in perpetual fear of abandonment. We need to know that we can fuck up and that we are forgivable. We need to know that we can make detours, and that when we come round our circle will receive us with loving welcome.

Faith is a leap of faith. And trust is about faith, I think. It isn't about an observation of events that weigh out with a pro or con. Trust is not that clinical. It is instinctual. Emotional. It isn't about experience that shows us that we are putting our hearts on the line foolishly. It is about faith. Trust is a fragile thing, and it is a choice, but it is also a very visceral thing which speaks from a deep place in the gut, 'evidence' to the contrary, notwithstanding. We hope that trust will bear out to be well-placed and we have faith in that. In our families. In our friendships. In our communities. In where we put our vote. Because trust and Hope, and Faith live in the heart. The mind can say all it wants, with its Ego and its logic, but the heart is the captain of these seas.

We need to take certain things for granted to remain sane. We really do. I need to know my man loves me. That my brother will always be in my corner, that my friend will not forsake me if I make a stupid and monumentally mortifying mistake (okay, maybe that's never happened to you, but I tell you three times: it happens to me on a regular basis). That my mother (crazy old bat that she is, Gods Love her) will still love me even though I will never be like her, no matter how much she wills me to be.....That my government will not strip me of my rights and usurp them, or make unilateral and global decisions without my own small voice being heard.

And yet the closest people to us are the ones we 'take for granted' with the greatest lack of attention, the most egregious disregard; the most neglectful absence of attention. The arrogance and hubris exemplified in our behaviour to these very ones being put at the bottom of the list of priorities is staggering... and yet we take for granted that we will all cleave together when the fertilizer hits the rotating blades, and funnily enough, most often, we do. Moreover, the one and only person (besides,and even including our Creator) who is ALWAYS there, the Self, is the one we take most for granted, the one we abandon most easily....We all do it, some of the time.

But where is that line? When its not okay anymore.....

When the friend of a lifetime's long decades, who has found a new love, is 'too busy', or when the spouse has an important work project and needs to focus all attention on that, or when the parent is (probably with justification) involved in their own process of aging, or when we ourselves realize that not only are our most important ones at the bottom of 'the list' but we ourselves are not on that list at all! The Self gets lost utterly.

I take for granted that my family will be as dysfunctional as the next one, but that they will love me anyway; that my friend will assume I will be there when she's come out of her new love-fog (and dammit, nigh-on forty years trumps five minutes every time, thank you very goddamn much), and that my partner will know that I will be there, when he takes his head out of his navel (or arse... soon, I hope). I take these things for granted because the Love there is enduring. It is a constant, which sits at the hub of all that swirls around it. And I wonder that Love can, in fact, be constant. At all. Its a bloody miracle.

So I reckon that constancy in love is about trust, and Trust is a sister to Hope, both of which are a leap of Faith.

Tricky times in the world at large, these days. All I know is that people can and do love one another. That is, it really IS a constant. THERE IS LOVE BETWEEN PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD. I know this. We have hope that things will 'get better' and we have Faith, we leap into that blind place with Trust.

My mother told me that when I was two-ish, we were hanging out at a pool on a pretty sunny day. She said that she was chatting with some other mothers and all of a sudden she heard my voice call out to her. I was standing on the diving board, little and wee, with all the faith and trust in the world smiling out of my face. "Mama, catch!" I shouted as I jumped into the deep end. Well she scrambled like hell to get to me and you know what? I wasn't drowned. I was okay. I trusted and leaped. Trust... that 'blind leap of faith' is like that..... You just go for it, and when Love is there, you aren't drowned. Mum nearly shit her pants, of course, but I learned that someone would catch me if I jumped. I just wish I still had the faith of the innocent....These days I have to work at it. I have to really make a choice and trust with my WILL that I will be caught, when I jump.

I'm boycotting the consumer thing this season. For a change. Christmas is so stressful. I don't like it. It kills the 'Spirit' of the season for me. The real meaning of this time of year, which is really about the celebration of the return of Light to the land..... For me, the turning of the season, the OLD meaning, the Original meaning is all about renewal and reconnection. All across the World we see ancient cultures celebrating the 'festival of Light' in its various forms, with is myriad traditions. And that is a Joyful thing.

I'll do a tree, and that will be lovely. I'll make a family dinner ( I do a gorgeous bird if I do say so myself), I'll 'deck the halls' and decorate with ivy and cedar and holly, and the house will smell heavenly with it. 'Stuff', however, is so unnecessary. I don't want it. I dont want 'things'....For once, it is such a relief to say, "No, I dont want things..." I just want my people, great food and a happy time with a shared couple of bottles of wine and good conversation and togetherness.

I dont want STUFF.

I want Hope, and Faith, and I trust that people who can love WILL and SHALL love, and that with the coming of Solstice, the renewal of Light and renewal of Life, that Love, and Faith in humanity and its goodness, it's potential, shall prevail, and we will all trust enough to make a leap of Faith into a New Year, and have enough will to create a new vision for the future, where we CAN take for granted the vision that we hold in faith.Where we can take for granted that what is good and right will be created, by all of us, collectively. Because at the end of the day, as human beings, we are capable of love. We are capable of hope, of tolerance, of respect for differences and diversity, and in that there is the potential for anything we want. For all things good.

Humanity is still in it's adolescence. We are a very young species. We have a long way to go but we have the seeds of greatness and goodness in us. We can be beautiful.

I have faith in that. Call me naive. That's okay.

Because I think that if we have Love, we've got to have hope. And if we have hope we must have Faith. It doesnt matter what name that Faith has, so long as it informs us that something good is possible. That we can create, as a collective humanity, something good out of our belief in the possible. The possibility for an end to limitation; an end to judgment; an end to the subjugation of one for the other; an end to prejudice and bigotry (I so very much want that, believe in that possibility, that reality).....Possibilities can only exist if we believe they exist..... If we Intend them to exist... I can believe in that. I can really get behind that kind of belief. I am telling you right now that this is a real possibility that we can create.I know this is true.

I believe that we can be big. I have a lot of hope invested in us, as a species, that we can all be great.

I don't know if I can take that for granted, but I intend to take that leap of Faith.

Bird.

Later: I can have all the Trust I want (or try) but that isn't going to stop Teddy the Bear from busting out of the dog run and going on walk-about when he feels like it..... That little rat-bag. He's just very lucky he's so cute! And I'm very lucky he always comes back... eventually. :)