🧟‍♀️Zombie & Love Stories 🥰

I shot this photo and the ones below a few days ago. All are of my shadow (and a couple of small friends making a guest appearance) dancing at twilight on the Earth.

Twilight (literal and metaphorical) is when our shadows become most interesting. 

I have a dark and complicated shadow AND I have parts of me that shine with bright love. Both are an essential part of who I am. There's no point in trying to run or hide from my shadows or to fight the shadows of others. But I can choose to dance with both the light and the dark within and around me. 

One of the ways of dancing with the shadow involves the stories we are telling ourselves each other during darkening days and/or just before exciting and extraordinary new dawns. 
  

🌞🌑💃🏻🌞🌑💃🏻🌞🌑💃🏻🌞🌑💃🏻

Some of the content of this post was taken from something I wrote in a Facebook group in response to a meme presenting Greta Thunberg as a tool of dark forces. Although I mention politics, the point I am making is not about furthering any agendas of the left or right. 

It is about the stories we tell (on both left left and the right as well as in nonpolitical situations) and the power those stories have to shape our lives.

These are liminal times on our planet when we can no longer live comfortably in the old story or fully inhabit the new one that is still a mystery. 

Liminal can mean a transitional doorway between two worlds. Such as dusk when day is turning into night. Or dawn when night is turning into day. 

In this transitional time we are all collectively inhabiting, so many old paradigms are crumbling and thrashing around in their death throes and our exaggerated shadows are dancing wildly at the edges of the dark void. AND there is magic during these times as new paradigms are being formed.

I do not believe that the void, the edges, the shadows, the darkness, death, Mystery, anger, fear, and an enormous range of differing beliefs (including “conspiracies”) are wrong and bad. 

Consider the opposite extremes of perpetual sunlight, and only that which can be proven by dry, logical certainty, that which can never decay or die, nothing but sweetness, etc. 

Perhaps in another realm, there might be a world where that there is nothing but sweetness and light. However, here on planet Earth we live with cycles and I, for one, celebrate that.

I also celebrate exploring dissonance (part of harmony) as well as that which we fear and resist. ALL are a vital part of the whole. 

I understand there are dangers in the darkness and I struggle with how to stand sovereign with a sword of discernment and demarcate clear boundaries (especially when defending the innocent and vulnerable) AND be curious, open, and willing to listen --even to those that hold diametrically opposing views from my own. 

For the record, I do not believe that Greta is being used by shadowy political cabals. 

Nor do I subscribe to very many conspiracy theories. Although some of them are compelling, I try not to invest much of my energy in that which is fear based, with villains that should be fought, as I believe that which we resist persists and grows more adamant with conflictual energy.

I do not want to breathe life into those stories. I just looked up the etymology of the word conspiracy. It is to breathe together.  What if, when we collectively breathe life into stories of evil, we give them more power? 

I am not saying they're not possible. Evil definitely has a powerful presence in the world. I have seen some extremely convincing articles and videos around various “conspiracies”.

And there are many in my wide circle of loved ones who hold views that I do not, including "conspiracy theories". I care about them and want to live in as much harmony as we can create in the midst of our differing views of reality. 

So I will respectfully listen to what they believe and try to understand what they are feeling that underlies their beliefs. And I will search for any possible common ground; shared beliefs, shared fears, shared griefs as well as shared hopes and loves.

As for those who are not in my circle of loved ones (and for whom I confess that despite my best intentions I harbor strong judgments), I am not advocating a spiritual bypass. Yes, we are "all one/children of God" but that doesn't mean I just want to give all politicians and CEOs of polluting companies etc. big hugs and tell them to go ahead and continue perpetrating harm. 

There are times when it is not responsible to refuse to take action (which under extreme circumstances could involve extreme measures). 

I just do not choose to use my precious time and energy to fight battles I couldn't possibly win --especially using the weapons of "shadow powers", since they clearly have more! I would rather in-spire rather than con-spire and to use my playful creativity and kinder means to explore what else is possible.

This quote from Ariel Spillsbury arrived in my email yesterday:

"In a sense we are putting "spells" or closed feedback loops on each other, hypnotic suggestions by the way we see others, the expectations we hold of them, the stories we tell about them. In quantum physics it is called the Observer Effect. In essence, that means we see what we expect to see. (Though paradoxically, no one is absolutely at cause, because reality is actually acausal, self-arising, non-linear, holographic.. a mutually created holographic dream projection.)”

I also love Leah Lamb's take on what she calls "zombie stories”. These are stories that may in fact be “true", but telling them leaves no place for the listener to engage.

 For instance, if you tell the story that we are doomed (from an environmental standpoint, or powerful cabals), then why even bother to take action, since it is clearly hopeless? Here is a great quote from Leah: 

"Speak with fear and you will speak to the fear in others. Speak from scarcity and you will breed scarcity in others. Speak from love, and you will wake love in others."

We can tell stories of the zombie apocalypse : the planet is dying and it is hopeless --we will all soon be dead OR there are zombie cabals trying to control us with lies about environmental disasters.

But all zombies eat brains and leave their victims with no will of their own. Groupthink zombie stories are not alive and do not allow for the individual listener to have even a spark of hope that might inspire them to take life-affirming action.

I believe with all my heart that the only way we can individually and collectively navigate this time of transition is to respectfully and kindly dance with those other shadows that are here with us to the best of our abilities and start telling different stories.

Instead of seeing our shadows and those of others as bad and unlovable, what if we try to get to know them a little better and maybe even embrace them?

Instead of telling zombie stories (even if you believe them to be true) which spread fear, anger and hopelessness as well as making shadows darker scarier and bigger, why not find ways to connect with teams of allies and start telling stories that are equally if not more true that use creative imagination, loving kindness, and new possibilities?

I invite you to consider what other stories are possible. Can you come up with stories in which we create changes that allow us to care for our planet and the children and other beings who live here? I encourage you to think outside of the box of our current narratives in which there are clearly defined villains and that is soon as they stop doing bad things everything will be fine.*

I am hugely inspired by the massive movement of children (and all of the adults who support them) rising up to protect their planet, but our kids deserve better than only scary zombie stories. And all of us are responsible to add our piece to the narrative and to join together to create change.

*This is my favorite book about climate change  it offers a surprising perspective that people of all political persuasions will find interesting.