Being in the midst of the beautiful sagacity of Dr. Gabor Mate yesterday was yet another revelatious day and re-enforcing of why the work of 'Compassionate Inquiry' into our suffering is so vital in working with our tender, wounded, wonderful and, ultimately, glorious human condition.
I have long now been a student of the wounds of our species, having been on an almost decade long odyssey of self-searching after the roots of Western colonialism, spurred on by First Nations elders that encouraged me to look to the wound of the White indigenous peoples and what became of ancient Europe. This has taken me on a harrowing journey into the enigmatic essence of Gnosticism, the Mystery School traditions, the mythology of the Goddess Sophia, and the Nag Hammadi Library. It has also been primarily a revelation that the most ancient wound is found in our human sexuality. One need look no further than the imperial myth of the Garden of Eden and Adam & Eve. What are we told happened the moment Adam & Eve 'fell'? They covered their naked bodies in shame, beginning a millennium old horror story of what happens to a disembodied human species, leading all the way to the unparalleled destruction of the great body of Mother Earth and collective insanity.
We are bearing witness these days to the sexual wound surfacing like never before in our species and it fulfills a prophecy given to me within the first year of my spiritual awakening when I was told by truly divine guidance to never look away from the pain of life no matter how disgusted we may become. As Hollywood burns in a chaos of sexual abuse, as women rise in their stead and cry defilement of their bodies and honour, and as men too rise in their own hidden pains, shames and even remorse of perpetration caught in the wiles of victim-perpetrator bonding, the suffering we have and are still incurring is unimaginably vast. Moreover, so much of the abuse has happened to us when we were defenseless children.
I have also witnessed much rage and heavy-handedness being vented, expressed, projected, etc. in the past few weeks as we come to grips with our terrible trauma in, as Gabor asserted, a 'trauma-phobic' culture. I see that much of this rage is also the unconscious grief that we have not only not been taught wholesome use of our sexuality but Western culture, in particular, exudes an extremely dangerous culture of rape and objectification where it's becoming clear even pedophilia is being pushed toward normalization. We are truly under tremendous duress and that's why Gabor offered such solace for me personally yesterday. We need to fully accept what we feel, even hatred and rage, allowing them necessary transmission but not at the expense of our compassion for our shared humanity. What that looks like is still very much a mystery I feel and one that takes tremendous courage and skill to foster...
I've been involved much in the healing of my own sexuality, riddled with my own pain, and also involved with concerned citizens attempting to rectify sexual abuse and misconduct in our communities. And I have been attacked and slandered vehemently for attempting to do this work (something I was warned about it from the outset from others who have already been blazing this trail), and I don't decry that in any kind of victimization. It actually illuminates the complexity of the trauma we are all wrapped up in that compassion can be so exiled, disassociation so rife that we can become so callous and cruel toward each other as we get close to this horrifying wound. This is some of the hardest work to do...
I take heart by Gabor that when we render just how helpless and in agony we all are in our collective sexual trauma, that we can perhaps begin to merge assertiveness and compassion. For even, those sexually deviant and in misconduct are duly suffering, almost always traumatized themselves. We must find a way to strike a dynamic balance and it will take more effort than a few. It will be the rising of something unprecedented that demands the might of our Hearts and Love to expand to a capacity unknown to us. This will require great patience, forgiveness and also appropriate use of forthrightness, boundary setting and setting pathways of restorative justice. We need to clearly understand the grave danger of what happens when our sexuality is not in alignment with honour, respect, and love; it truly can become a most destructive force of not only our lives but our planet. On the other hand, I am warmed by a re-emergence of a sacred sense of sexuality which may fulfill what the great American psychic, Edgar Cayce, said would open the greatest power of healing our species has ever experienced. Sexuality is nothing but a wider expression of the creativity which is the essence of this universe.
We truly are healing the most ancient of suffering and we are all so violated by it. When we awake to how far the tyranny of darkness has extended on this planet, we will realize how precious the Light of the human soul is like never before. And we shall never allow it to be betrayed again...
"Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”
-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin