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SURRENDER ...
is a hard word to be in relationship with. So often we hear 'surrender' and we think 'defeat.' Especially in the context of deep and immediate threats to one's basic wellbeing, dignity, and humanity, surrender feels like the opposite of what we need. But recently we've been wondering how to access a deeper meaning in a word that is really a practice, an internal as much as an external action.
Exerting our own control or will back onto something that is harming us can sometimes wind up causing us more harm. We're contemplating surrender not as the opposite effort - a complete loss of control - but as a conscious relinquishing of it. Instead of sitting in fear of the emptiness and powerlessness that might result, take this time in between two potent eclipse portals to consider surrender as an act of awe to the power of nature - the beautiful, bountiful, mystical forces that brought all of us into being to experience life and love.
What if what we surrender to is a world beyond the imagination of the current capitalist systems? To a sense of trust that another way is possible. Not to 'give up' but to make space for a more potent way of being to emerge.
In an interview with Tami Simon of Insights at the Edge, James Hollis shares the importance of acknowledging that "...our powers are limited, and what we need to have is a relationship to that which provides continuity, and gives us a sense of purpose, and communicates with us, and that has our healing and our spiritual enlargement as its agenda."
We talk and think a lot about power here, and often it's about becoming aware of your own power so that you can use it to take effective action in your life. When Hollis says 'our powers are limited,' he doesn't mean that we should feel helpless or disempowered, but that we are not in control of everything. So many of us, ourselves included, have spent so long living within the characteristics of White Supremacy culture, that it's easy and human to think that we can exert control by our own force, and miss how that force is doing some of its own damage. Our fear can lead us to alternatives that are even more scarce than the current reality.
What might we build with our hands if we first let go of the reigns we hold so tightly? What ideas could be born if we were not expending so much energy on upholding this constructed 'reality'?
This month, we practice surrender, not to a status quo that does not serve us, but to make space for the creativity and connectivity that brings us all more alive and in connection with one another.
In surrender,
Tay + Dor
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