Considering our ongoing slow-motion apocalypse, a Yeats themed post was inevitable, don’t you think?
Over the past few months, I’ve found my focused attention narrowing down to a very short list of critical things:
- The Peaceable Kingdom — our household, including all its members
- Dear friends — near and far who I connect with
- The day job — which I continue to really love and appreciate
- CircleThrice — because I love you all, that’s why
And above all: myself (treatment, healing, self care)
This is natural when faced with a situation or trial that requires a lot of energy. You have to focus in order to just get through things, let alone get through them in a positive way. It’s not even necessarily a negative situation. For example, before I had a baby, I was incapable of letting the phone ring. I always had to jump and get it (and this was before we had cell phones). Once I had a baby though, I suddenly discovered that I was thrilled to let calls go to voice mail. I really didn’t care anymore because I had plenty other immediate things to focus on.
So my attention is focused more and more to self and home and close community… the result of which is that the falcon CAN hear the falconer (that is, I can hear my inner self more clearly) and the center is actually holding better and better. For those of you who’ve gone through what I like to call Gordon’s Coherence training, it’s been great for that. I mean, I can go out back right now and watch our visitor bees and feel like everything is still fine and cycling along just as it needs to, and no mere anarchy can change that. I can do magic for myself (my own magic has gotten wildly experimental lately) and my family and not feel stressed or frantic. I can make decisions in a more clear-eyed way.
And it’s not like I don’t know what’s going on. The calls are still coming in, voicemails still getting left, I’m just focusing less on it and feeling calmer about it. The calls aren’t coming from inside the house.
You don’t have to wait for some big event or experience or diagnosis to come along to narrow your own gyre. You can do it right now. You’ll feel better and you’ll have more energy to make change where it matters. The world will continue to fall apart, but it would have anyway. Certainly our innocence has been stripped from us but we don’t have to drown. We can surf the tide and keep our heads above the bloody water. We can avoid livestreaming Bethlehem. We can, we should, we must. Because maybe a lack of conviction (that we’re right, that we’re in control, that we really know what’s going on) is exactly what we need.
Revelation gonna’ keep revealing regardless. No need to stare into the sun while it happens, it only blinds us.
Hang in there. Stay healthy (and I don’t just mean physically) and take care of yourself and those you love.
