Yesterday I left you with the idea that "peace needs to be sexy, again." It wasn't my thought. I'm not that gifted. It was something I heard on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday.
When I heard Jean Houston say it I smiled and immediately thought of Woodstock and how (ideally) I would have loved to be there but (realistically) the disorganization and mud would have driven me bat shit crazy! Let's just say I fancy myself there "in spirit." I can MOST definitely say I would have loved to have been dry, fed and front row to each and every act. If that could have been arranged...I would have been one happy, golden hippie.
But Jean Houston was not talking about Woodstock peace, which was arguably not peaceful at all. I think she was talking about Jesus peace. I call it Jesus peace because that is what works for me. You may call it perfect universal equilibrium. Some may call it "blue." The name we give it is frankly irrelevant. It's all the same when you strip the house of language away from it.
I don't consider myself "at peace"....ever. I don't even sleep peacefully. I don't consider this a character flaw, I consider it a unique attribute. Sometimes my peace-less-ness serves me well, most times it doesn't. It is something I am often chasing after and fall achingly short of reaching it. Then I wonder if others "have it" and know how to "get it" and look at me, sadly shaking their heads at my many failed attempts. And then I go a step beyond that. I wonder if no one is chasing the peace BUT me and people look at me, sadly shaking their heads at my many failed attempts. Y'all notice how many OTHER PEOPLE'S thoughts and opinions creep into my quest for peace. I am going to head out on a limb here...the path to peace probably involves allowing all that bullshit to melt away...melt far, far away.
I suppose in my quest for "peace" and "making it sexy" again I should try to define what I'm after. All that comes to me is the following: a gentle hum. Peace, for me, would feel like a gentle hum at the very cellular level of my being. Like the hum of the bowl Marisa has in her house...it makes the universal sound OM. The gentle hum would awaken my body to it's greatest purpose and it would replace the chatter in my mind...which I have recently learned NEVER stops. I feel like I would emanate the hum and people would be drenched in it when in my presence. It would fill up the space between me and everyone else. The space would be pregnant with joy and love and limitless compassion and forgiveness.
I often find myself angry with Earth. No, not Earth. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Earth is a mother who gives and gives and gives...like the tree in The Giving Tree and I fear we have collectively worn her down to a stump and yet we keep asking and drilling and begging and polluting as if her resources are infinite and our behavior should proceed without consequence. (And I will be the first to admit I am a giant offender.)
No, I find myself angry with the ways of the world. Here I am, chasing after the gentle hum and God (or The Universe) makes it REALLY damn hard to find the hum. And I'm truly privileged. And...... as I just typed that last statement I closed my eyes and shook my head in dismay and disappointment. My thoughts shoot to a starving child in Africa with a defeated and exhausted mother trying to fill his belly. Somehow I suspect they hear the hum and feel the hum far more clearly than I do.
It's a funny thing, really, truly ironic....I want the hum and yet put a myriad of obstacles in my own way towards the OM. Let's take this moment for example....I've got the television on. Usher is entertaining an audience of people. I did not go to my fitness class to find body balance. I chose instead to come home and lay my head down for a few moments. I allowed the actions of a few women today to occupy my thoughts and behaved in a glib manner when recounting the story (essentially gossiping) to a friend. I never took into account the space between myself and these women...the place I want the gentle hum to exist. I never, for a moment, tried to find the hum in them. I have chosen to perseverate on several unanswered emails today...completely blocking the hum I am after. I could go on forever.
Indeed it is time to bring "sexy back" in the form of peace....at least for me. There is a song in church...
"Let peace begin with me...let this be the moment now. Let peace begin with me...let this be my solemn vow. "
I'm gonna try real hard to bring sexy back...my way...not that Justin's way isn't equally as important.
And in my attempt to bring it back, I ask YOU, my friends, to help me be accountable.
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