Whispers before dawn
Listening to the soul's call to consciousness and love
I awakened in the single digit night hours, turning to my side, a pillow tucked between my knees, and groaned. A phrase was speaking in me, and as I tried to stay in my sleep cocoon, it was having its way with me, sentences beginning to form and spill forth. I knew I needed to write them or record them, or I’d not recall this in the morning. From experience I also knew once I did this, I’d be awake awhile, and need to meditate before much needed sleep would return.
Trying something different, I picked up my iPhone, opened a new page in Notion in my “Idea Collection Bucket” and then pressed the microphone, to record my voice, in hopes I’d not completely wake myself up, while still capturing what wanted to make itself known. I closed my eyes and began speaking. This reflection today rises from that 4:05 a.m. inner-soul whisper wake-up call.
Do you ever awaken in the midnight hours with an idea or dream that bubbles alive and doesn’t want to let go of you?
I awakened to, “Crucify him, crucify him.”
Every Palm Sunday, this refrain often becomes a spoken chant as part of the liturgy, when Christians recall the Passion of Jesus the Christ. “Crucify him, crucify him” is spoken aloud by the people gathered to worship together.
For decades, at this annual Mass the Sunday before Easter, I would rebel at speaking this aloud in the gathered congregation. It feels violent to my core and heart center. I resist. Stop. Become silent. Weep within.
How come this phrase awakened me at 4:00 a.m.? What is the message my consciousness and soul seek me to hear this year, in 2024?
I listen.
Breathe.
“Crucify him, crucify him.”
I believe Jesus knew exactly what was to come, when he asked his friends to stay awake with him in the Garden of Gethsemane, to pray with him.
I ponder the ways in 2024, that we crucify “him,” ourselves, and one another in our daily life. Setting aside culture, war, and mob mentality, thoughts and positions from an unexamined life and lack of inner and outer coherence, I find myself reflecting about which ways I—or you—shame ourselves and others? How do we interrupt, criticize, discount, disrespect, talk over, minimize, and scorn the other, or abandoned parts of ourselves internally, or one-to-one, or in public settings?
Several thoughts from past experiences rise in me, all legitimate one-word complete sentences. For example, when triggered, begin to incorporate a response or inquiry of,
“What?”
This can be to self or others in instances when feeling confused, dismayed, disconnected, or incongruent. A simple, honest, “What?” and then wait.
Another single word sentence could be,
“Stop.”
Or,
“No.”
Jesus said, Turn your other cheek, and there is historical context for this action together with theological understanding that I won’t go into now. However, turning your face or gaze away from something or someone is not necessarily turning a blind eye. Perhaps it’s a way to practice the golden rule while giving yourself some space to process what you are experiencing and give yourself a time out for response-ability. And, a call to consciousness for the person speaking to you.
Perhaps a turning away from, or replying, What?, Stop., or No with a steady gaze may be the healthiest response to verbal abuse of “power-over” in contrast to “power-with” dynamics.
Self-preservation and transformational growth include love, boundaries, choosing the energy we allow and cultivate in our everyday life. Becoming courageous and practicing non-violent communication may take learning for many of us—it certainly has for me—especially to identify what I’m feeling, what I need, and expressing this truth.
Questions to ponder:
What frequency do I tune into? Do I experience static, noise, clearness?
What sounds, taste, sights and images do you invite into your body, heart, soul?
Who and what brings a frequency of love, kindness, service, and connection alive for you?
This Holy Week I’m reflecting with Ilia Delio’s book, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love. She writes,
Love as a Cosmological Force
“For Teilhard [Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher, and teacher], love is a passionate force at the heart of the Big Bang universe, the fire that breathes life into matter and unifies elements center to center; love is deeply embedded in the cosmos, a ‘cosmological force.’ In his essay poem, ‘The Eternal Feminine,’ he reflects on love in the voice of wisdom:
When the world was born, I came into being. Before the centuries were made, I issued from the hand of God-half-formed, yet destined to grow in beauty from age to age, the handmaid of his work. Everything in the universe is made by union and generation—by the coming together of elements that seek out one another, melt together two by two, and are born again in a third. God instilled me into the initial multiple as a force of condensation and concentration. In me is seen that side of beings by which they are joined as one, in me the fragrance that makes them hasten together and leads them, freely and passionately, along their road of unity. Through me, all things have their movement and are made to work as one.
Evolution unveils a depth of integrated wholeness that is open to more unity, centricity, and consciousness. Love is not sheer emotion or simply a dopaminergic surge in the limbic system; it is much more deeply embedded in the fabric of the universe. Love is the integrated energy field, the center of all centers, the whole of every whole, that makes each whole desire more wholeness. While love-energy may not explicitly show itself on the level of the pre-living and the non-reflective, it is present inchoately as the unifying principle of wholes as entities evolve toward greater complexity” (43).
Reflection or journaling sparks
How might a mob mentality kill love?
When and where do I most often refuse kindness and courage for self and others?
How might I employ a loving “Stop.” and “What?” into my daily living this week?
Who and what demonstrates love to me?
Where do I experience a unified wholeness or freedom, and create it for others, perhaps easily, or even with great sacrifice, in service of a higher good?
I leave you with a brief prayer I wrote earlier this week, after arriving home to Alaska, and welcoming spring, from my treehouse room on the frozen Kenai River.
May whatever needs to thaw in you, begin to warmup and breakup
May this time of hibernation emergence reveal the tender seedlings that have taken root in you
May your inner life sync and be in harmony with its outer lived expression
May you experience a quickening as light grows in the northern hemisphere with the promise of birdsong, blossoming, and visible growth in discerned action
May you let go and move on from that which no longer serves your highest good, or that of others—be in mindset, heart space, place, or relationship
May courage and care, spiced with contemplation and connection, be your constant companions
May you embrace a mighty kindness towards yourself and others, bringing love to everyday life.
Peace from my heart to yours this day, this Holy Week, and every day
Thank you, Pegge. Very centering for me this morning. I just had the 1-year anniversary of my open heart surgery—my opening into a much bigger experience of unconditional love, which has been dribbling in all year since then. Last year, the 22nd was the equinox, and my surgery day, and today, the 25th, I gather we are having a powerful eclipse in Aries (self) and Libra (others), bringing to mind for me, self-love and "we"-love. It all seems to connect like parallel points on an expanding spiral. I have been reminded by my inner voice, like when I'm doing tax prep or unloading the dishwasher (again!)—"Even this is in the Flow! Even this is lovable." And then I feel it. Thanks for more of this kind of thing.