In Changing Paradigm
The summer of love is coming to a close. Fall approaches. These times can sweep us away with their busyness, with reaping reward for the commitments we've made to ourselves and this world. With preparing for a cold winter ahead. Yes, there is much to accomplish, and we can trust that without forced effort, everything is done.
There is something so delicious about presence inside process.
Astrologically, Venus and Mars have been highlighted this summer. Venus, Goddess of Love and Mars, God of Desire. Relationships changed and transformed. Our values and worth were reassessed and recreated. We've all been working on revolutionizing the balance of masculine and feminine within ourselves.
This week, we exist inside an eclipse portal delivering us through the next realm of evolution. The Total Lunar Eclipse on Sunday, September 27th peaks at 10:48pmEST. The eclipse is sun in Libra, moon in Aries, highlighting the realm of the sky ruled by venus and mars. We are challenged to balance ourselves as men and women, individuals and relationships.
It is clear that there is much to be done in terms of social change. Social change on a broader scale begins with the individual.
Saturn just exited Scorpio. Scorpio is our repressed urge closet, a karmic store of shadowy sexual realms. Sagittarius, where Saturn no resides, involves publishing, broadcasting, and getting the word out about truth.
Recently, in my hometown of Asheville, there has been a huge uproar after two successful local business owners were exposed for running an anonymous sex blog and podcast, in which they kept a detailed public log of all their female "conquests." Mothers, teachers, sisters, friends, women in this community and elsewhere were defamed. The information was full of objectifying misogynist, racist, body-shaming and homophobic comments. Their products were pulled from shelves. Several of their employees quit. Protestors gathered outside the business calling for total boycott. The business has now closed to regroup, and stated that all of their profits throughout this year's end will be donated to a rape crisis organization, Our Voice.
The reaction to this situation has been monumental locally. Some commenters have noted the irony of the name of the business: Waking Life. But note how pertinent that name happens to be. For the problem is much deeper than two ignorant boy-men making anonymous public comments. This event in our community serves as a catalyst, a Wake Up call if you will, for addressing and beginning to change systemic and psychological issues that have been alive for far too long in our global community.
Popular culture in movies, comedy, music and advertising are still rife with propagating and profiting from objectification. Our business owners have been lambasted and we'll see if the business survives, but as I look around at how people interact in daily life, it strikes me that these men are simply a focused public example of attitudes that remain pervasive and dominating in so many relationships. When did the loss of innocence become sexy? Why is sex so often associated with belittling games, degradation, and harmful exchanges of power?
The problem is not these two business owners. The problem is in a widespread gross lack of real sex education. It's in how your parents treated each other inside your home as you grew up. It's in your grandfather making frozen-in-time sexist comments that everyone at the dinner table chooses to gloss over or ignore. It's in trash books like "The Game" that have been hugely popular among men seeking some kind of guide. The problem evolves from repression, secrecy, and hiddenness. The problem is in silence, shadows, privilege, and inadequate container for our deepest urges.
As I read some of the words on the anonymous blog, what struck me was how, underneath, it seemed the writer longed for a fulfilling connection. The blog itself read as a cry for validation, his "conquests" a hungry ghost craving to somehow fill a vast void of intimacy inside himself. Even as he degraded the women he engaged with, he wistfully made note of the happy relationships many of those women went on to be in. In addition to disgust and anger generated by published statements, it was a diary that mostly invoked sadness that so many are missing true connection within themselves and with each other.
The problem is generated by and for the need to change.
Let's stop buying into falsehood and vacancy. Let's create more accountability for each other. Let's recreate popular culture to reflect innocence and depth in our values and relatings. Let's talk about sex, baby, and confront ugly comments at the dinner table when they arise. Let's take charge of our evolution as sexual beings.
My Sifu (martial arts master) says: "Know yourself before others."
The individual creates peace within the self.
Peace within the self leads to fulfilling, balanced relationships based on trust and respect.
Harmonious couplings create joyous, sensational families.
Sensational families give rise to healthful, abundant communities.
Strong communities support fair and equitable policies.
It all begins the same place:
Innocence.
Innocence is the natural byproduct of purity through love.
Work on ending the struggle inside yourself. Resolve opposing dichotomies.
Do your inner work. Let go. Remain present. Remain married to real love.
This is the revelation, our revolution.
Cheers to all of us actively engaged in our own personal and communal "waking life." Let us use this event to serve as a catalyst for us to observe how we still objectify or degrade ourselves and others. And let's do better. Let's be better. Let us become beautiful. Let us make peace.