In my last blog, I wrote about Pledging Allegiance to Self Love. In that blog, I implored you to pledge to love yourself. Have you done it, darling? Spent time with the dark corners of your life that have brought you deep shame while offering yourself love? I hope you have darling. As I’ve said, you are not the sum of your darkest moments. You are expansively your light and love, should you choose to live in harmony with it. For it is not what happens to us, but how we respond that truly matters. As I write these words to you, I have to be honest, there is a piece of my writing that is selfish. “Selfish,” you say? Yes darling, selfish.
You see, I do want you to access your love and live expansively in it. I also want this because I want every being on earth to live the best life possible. We only get so many trips around the sun. I’ve written to you before about the Two Wolves; if you spend your time orbiting the sun lost in fear you have in turn lost your life. A life lost in fear means a life filled with wounding; both for yourself and others. But if you live your life connected to your love, you live your life connected to your true essence and the spirit surrounding us. As you stay in this connection to your love your wounds are able to heal.
This part of my wish is not selfish, I do want you to find your love and stay in connection with it. The part of my wish that is selfish is that I am tired of living in a world filled with hate and fear. I’m not just tired, I’m exhausted, and I need all of us to shed this pointless way of life. I can no longer be a bystander to the parts of our world that are shaped by shadows. Sitting quietly is something I have never been quite good at.
A Shift from Fear to Love
You see, I have walked through an incredible amount of darkness in my life and I have seen firsthand what the great separation from love creates. I have wept as those I loved once fell into this darkness never to be seen again. I have observed the people involved in this darkness more times than not simply turn a blind eye. As I’ve watched all of this unfold I could have joined them in their darkness, but my rage demanded a different outcome. My anger did not come with fear, it came from knowing that a miracle is defined as a shift from fear to love. In each black moment of my life, I knew that love was a heartbeat away.
My external darkness involves a system of oppression. As I write this, I know that my sisters and brothers choked by this system know this darkness too well. While they may not be facing the exact system I have been oppressed by, anyone but the elite has certainly faced some type of oppression in their lifetime. And, in my opinion, the elite are just as lost to fear drowning in attachment to material possessions. There is an unequal distribution of power and wealth at the root of this oppression that is planted with seeds of fear.
This forest, our society, has taken root with fear and the trees growing are barren. Each of the seeds of fear plant separation that starts with a single being and then expands as it grows. These seeds tell us that we are the sum of our traumas, that we are unloveable, unforgivable, unworthy, and alone. As these seeds attempt to take root with you will you grow with them? Will you water your trauma with the poison of suppression? Will you sprinkle your mind with unkind and judgemental words first to yourself, and then towards others? Will you repress your shame so that the light of your empathy is forever smothered? Will you decide that to become worthy you must harvest your worth from others and the possessions of this world? Will you go to bed each night satiated on hate and fear until you know nothing but this darkness? In this darkness will you succumb to the idea that you are truly alone? One against the world? My love if you are lost in fear I am weeping for you. It is all too easy to water our pain and separate ourselves from love. Especially when we find ourselves in a forest grown from hate.
Water What You Want to Grow
Yet what is inside of the seed cannot be changed just as what is inside of each and every one of us cannot be changed. Watering fear grows fear. Watering love grows love. I need us to choose again and water our love. Our world is suffering, our society is not sustainable, and the most vulnerable amongst us are not safe.
So you see my darling I need you to water your love, because I need all of us to come back home. To wake up and realize that a wound done to the earth is done to all of us. That an oppression or injustice our sisters and brothers face is an oppression or injustice we all face. I need us to push the shadows of fear away so that the truth of love creates a light so bright it burns these forests of fear to the ground. I need all of us to say, “This is not the way,” when any level of hate is brought to us. Whether this be a moment you walk past a mirror muttering unkind words to yourself or a moment a brother is killed for the color of his skin. I need us all to wake up and demand love, equality, and a society that reflects who we truly are as humans.
My darlings, I implore you, to rub your sleepy eyes and see what is planted around you. If you have separated from your love, place your hand against your heart and find it. Then, my darlings as you wake from your fearful slumber, find your rage against the forest around you. Find a tree of hate worth cutting down and unleash your fury. Lead your life with love for yourself and our world. For together, should we collectively choose our love, our world can be replanted and flourish as the flowers of our truest form bloom.
Xoxo,
Jessie Cooper