Reflection for February by Andrew Stratton. Posted in Resident Newsletter at NICI
This month welcomes a few events as the constant tide of the calendar year comes and goes. It is a different feeling when incarcerated, but familiar nonetheless.
Valentine’s Day, a day to celebrate love and companionship, but also harmonized with loneliness and desire. These contrasting feelings are as intertwined as the razor-wire separating us from the ones we love on the other side. Lust and tension in our hearts are met with frustration and impatience, for video visits or phone calls just don’t do the justice. That pain is real.
President’s Day, the word itself brings up more controversy than the holiday celebrates its own meaning. The rise of tension among presidents has gone on for a decade, pushing a divide of belief systems and ideals even further, presenting itself as another Civil War, chomping at the bit to be unleashed. A sense of righteousness brought to both sides, creating a confusing sense of distraught purpose.
As winter is taking its final strides, spring is emerging the horizon. As beautiful as the past cold months were, the darkness and isolation is impossible to avoid, especially in our current setting. Eager for sunshine and warmth, the body and soul begins to stretch and flourish, remembering all that freedom has to offer. Seasons end and seasons change, giving birth to a new year; another rotation, accompanied by encouraging goals of growth and achievement.
Contrast, dichotomy, polarity and paradox…. Growth, cycles, rebirth, and purpose.
Polarities cause tension; tension causes conflict; conflict leads to war, and war brings destruction. The wars around us are easy to see and point out. Life’s garden is constantly surrounded, barely protected by weeds of power, greed, and hatred in the household, in the community, in the state, the nation and around the globe. Examples of this destruction are found at every level, fitting themselves into every size of society as if they were Russian nesting dolls.
What about the other way? Polarizing the world around – what about the world within? Love countered by fear; heart countered by mind, and soul by ego. Love by power and growth by destruction. A switch that can be so drastic, but where exactly is it? What exactly is it? What is the difference between isolation and solitude? Polarities cause tension; tension causes conflict; conflict leads to war, and war brings destruction. Do we not have these same civil wars within us?
Wars have been fought for as long as history has been able to tell us and much longer. As the dust has settled throughout them all, there is a time of rebirth with a new direction to take hold. Healing comes with growth; growth transforms into cooperation, and cooperation blossoms, becoming a new creation. Although we can see and record the worst of it, we hope and visualize for the best. The gifts and havens, however, are found in a convoluted palace of everything in between.
I can see it. I can feel it. But perhaps I’ve been looking at it wrong. Life is not always black and white. It’s not meant to be full of dichotomies, collapsing into civil wars. Perhaps the switch I seek is not a switch at all. The dichotomies are not sides or oppositions nor divisive. They are actually threads and vines and roots, meant to be nurtured and woven and braided. Acknowledgement and understanding is the water that allows them to grow and settle. Love and lust, met with impatience and frustration, is what gives it power, gives it meaning. As a path to destruction results in a profound journey towards growth and healing, this is where life reveals its true form of pastels and iridescent.
Having lived life exclusively focused on the world around, the process, thus far, has been counter intuitive. The attempt to control can channel higher waves and stronger storms, eventually ending up in confusion and defeat. Constantly taking from the outside world to mask and cope with the internal has proved to be temporary and unsustainable. Taking the voyage within, beginning to map the vast range of members that represent one’s being, while being curious and accountable, the world around has started to make more sense. Challenges, both foreseen and unexpected come and go as promised, but the ability to guide and maneuver the ship is what has created all the difference.
Continuing my curiosity for why rage can burn from what we love most, I’m recognizing a more valuable puzzle. How do I find patience and love for matters I hate? How do I accept and understand such intricate issues?
So many questions, and obsessed with answers, I have to be reminded of two features. The answers sought rarely present themselves when the questions are being asked, and as the answers are illuminated, I can have faith that more questions will glow in their shadows.
Patience…Balance…Presence….
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