I am a spiritual sensitive. This means that the energy of events, of tsunamis, of celebrations soak into my body as surely as the water I drink. Last night a sinister wave crashed into my body that made me feel crazy. I began to sway and cry, and felt a collision of pitiless joy and blood lust. I have never swooned before, but I swooned last night. I called to my husband, afraid, and he came tearing into the room, and caught me before I passed out. Just before the moment a dark unconsciousness hit, I heard the blip of my iPad, the push notice from the NY Times that Osama bin Laden had been killed.
Coming to, with yearning and love, I called to my spirits, and the spirit of this blood lust and joy, a truly horrific combination, was sucked from my body and Bear filled me with his power, strength and sobriety. Today, I am recouping, and slept most of the day.
This "overwhelm" used to confuse me. As a core shamanic practitioner, I believe (because I have observed) that when one is "power-full" one is immune to possession, to soul theft, to spiritual pollution.
But the spirits have told me that it is the medicine of one of my animals to take in poison in its many forms and transmute it. The poison I felt so deeply was the poison of dark rapture, of people so vigorously celebrating the death of a man. People seem to believe that with the death of OBL, the danger of terrorism has been killed too.
Ideas and philosophies do not die with the passing of one man or woman. They take root because of some chord they strike within the human heart. To kill in the name of love seemed, to me, to be the way of OBL and his followers. Such a belief can only finally bring pain and death because pain and death are placed on an altar to worship. Like draws like.
That such waves of celebration have now erupted as a result of this death means that, as a culture, we, too, are honoring death and hate. Rather than taking this as a time and as a signal to conduct serious spiritual inventory, deeply examining our own beliefs and how they may resemble those that we hate, we use the hate as fire to fuel the dark dance. How are we different if we embrace killing as a good thing? Wasn't that exactly what we "hated" Obama for? The irony is so strong it cuts.
As for me, I yearn and will continue to work in the ways of peace and joy. Not tuning out the pain and hate, but using them as mulch to grow a more humble garden of trembling respect for the frailty of all our souls. You must be very careful when you feed your soul, and hate and anger and vengence will find no home in mine. Even the weariness I feel tonight cannot be embraced. My soul, just like yours, was born to sing and merge with the stars. With feet planted in the earth, I raise my eyes to the stars knowing that love is both an imperative and the only choice -- even in a world gone mad.