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Seek To Be Heard
Mar. 5th, 2018 11:44 amWow… that’s the first thought that comes to mind when reading the meditation for March 2nd in, Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening: Having the life you want by being present in the life you have. Seriously if you haven’t taken a look at this book, I think it’s an amazing book of very thought provoking daily meditations - for which I must again thank my wonderful guy. It was a gift many years ago, and I loved using it then, just as I love the opportunity to begin using it again in my daily ‘me’ journey.
Originally, the word power meant ‘able to be.’ In time, it was contracted to mean ‘to be able.’ We suffer the difference.
As if that opening weren’t thought provoking enough, there are many more profound sentiments shared throughout the essay.
Language changes all the time. It must. Language changes or it dies. You only have to look at the Brittonic language (such as Welsh and Cornish) to realize that. The Welsh language has embraced new words in order to creep into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and though still endangered, has not yet been declared an extinct language, like Cornish, which was declared extinct by the UN in February of 2009.
However, as can be seen above, the change is not always an entirely positive one. In the above change, power becomes more about worldly power than inner ability, further widening the disconnect between ourselves and our inner landscapes - our mental, emotional and spiritual health. It is that emotional and spiritual disconnect that has led us along our current path to the dis-ease, and general unrest in which we find society at large today. The important question then becomes, what can we do about it?
...Those at the top can be so enslave by guarding their position that they rarely enjoy the view.
The key to effecting change, and to bringing about healing in our fractured world is for each individual to begin to acknowledge and accept themselves for who they truly are, and to embrace their personal power - using it to guide their steps along the path of day to day living.
A word of caution, however, is given in the quotation from the essay, given above. It is a manifestation of the difference between Power over, and Power with.
Google, “power over vs power with,” and you will be given access to a good many articles and explanations of what this means and what the difference is, but for me, my personal experience of the different (and of the very damaging) use of power over came through my involvement with the Pagan Network in the UK during the 90s, and the Wiccan Covens with which I have worked over the years. Put simply, power over is using one’s authority or position, one’s knowledge and skills in order to control other people or groups of people. Power with, on the other hand, is the embodiment of ‘first among equals,’ where no one individual is considered more important than the others, everyone’s skills and knowledge are honored and added to the melting pot - one might say, cauldron, and applied in times of the necessity of problem solving.
Think of the image of King Arthur’s round table… where the knights of Camelot all gathered at a circular table so that there was no head, because each knight was considered equal in status and importance to the realm, even the king.
It is a far more community oriented model of living and of walking the day to day path of life between the secular and the spiritual. One in which an individual is not afraid to seek the advice of a friend or mentor, and who is also free to act on that advice or not, according to their own thoughts and needs; their own sense of personal power. It is also a model in which no one person is ever thought of as ridiculous or ‘wrong’ (for want of a better/clearer word), because everyone’s voice is equally heard, and accepted or rejected as ‘good advice’ by each other individual, before a general consensus is reached. Under such a set of expectations, no one is ever afraid to speak or to seek to be heard.
That part of the text accompanying the entry struck me quite profoundly when I further realized that, in recent years - and quite disturbingly - I have allowed myself to become subjected to others’ negative power-seeking behaviors, and thus to be harmed. Many people, whether consciously or unconsciously, strive to exert power over others… often such people are those who feel the most power-less in their personal lives, using this as a way to take back some sense of that. However, such a strategy is isolating, and accrues negative feedback, negative energy, negative Karma, and leaves such people wondering why they are so lonely and unhappy in their apparent position of power. Nepo expresses this thought as follows:
But now, as a tired adult, when I feel alone and powerless atop whatever small hill I’ve managed to climb, I secretly long for anyone to join me. Now I”m ready to believe there’s more power here together
And I can’t think of a better way to put it.
Originally, the word power meant ‘able to be.’ In time, it was contracted to mean ‘to be able.’ We suffer the difference.
As if that opening weren’t thought provoking enough, there are many more profound sentiments shared throughout the essay.
Language changes all the time. It must. Language changes or it dies. You only have to look at the Brittonic language (such as Welsh and Cornish) to realize that. The Welsh language has embraced new words in order to creep into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and though still endangered, has not yet been declared an extinct language, like Cornish, which was declared extinct by the UN in February of 2009.
However, as can be seen above, the change is not always an entirely positive one. In the above change, power becomes more about worldly power than inner ability, further widening the disconnect between ourselves and our inner landscapes - our mental, emotional and spiritual health. It is that emotional and spiritual disconnect that has led us along our current path to the dis-ease, and general unrest in which we find society at large today. The important question then becomes, what can we do about it?
...Those at the top can be so enslave by guarding their position that they rarely enjoy the view.
The key to effecting change, and to bringing about healing in our fractured world is for each individual to begin to acknowledge and accept themselves for who they truly are, and to embrace their personal power - using it to guide their steps along the path of day to day living.
A word of caution, however, is given in the quotation from the essay, given above. It is a manifestation of the difference between Power over, and Power with.
Google, “power over vs power with,” and you will be given access to a good many articles and explanations of what this means and what the difference is, but for me, my personal experience of the different (and of the very damaging) use of power over came through my involvement with the Pagan Network in the UK during the 90s, and the Wiccan Covens with which I have worked over the years. Put simply, power over is using one’s authority or position, one’s knowledge and skills in order to control other people or groups of people. Power with, on the other hand, is the embodiment of ‘first among equals,’ where no one individual is considered more important than the others, everyone’s skills and knowledge are honored and added to the melting pot - one might say, cauldron, and applied in times of the necessity of problem solving.
Think of the image of King Arthur’s round table… where the knights of Camelot all gathered at a circular table so that there was no head, because each knight was considered equal in status and importance to the realm, even the king.
It is a far more community oriented model of living and of walking the day to day path of life between the secular and the spiritual. One in which an individual is not afraid to seek the advice of a friend or mentor, and who is also free to act on that advice or not, according to their own thoughts and needs; their own sense of personal power. It is also a model in which no one person is ever thought of as ridiculous or ‘wrong’ (for want of a better/clearer word), because everyone’s voice is equally heard, and accepted or rejected as ‘good advice’ by each other individual, before a general consensus is reached. Under such a set of expectations, no one is ever afraid to speak or to seek to be heard.
That part of the text accompanying the entry struck me quite profoundly when I further realized that, in recent years - and quite disturbingly - I have allowed myself to become subjected to others’ negative power-seeking behaviors, and thus to be harmed. Many people, whether consciously or unconsciously, strive to exert power over others… often such people are those who feel the most power-less in their personal lives, using this as a way to take back some sense of that. However, such a strategy is isolating, and accrues negative feedback, negative energy, negative Karma, and leaves such people wondering why they are so lonely and unhappy in their apparent position of power. Nepo expresses this thought as follows:
But now, as a tired adult, when I feel alone and powerless atop whatever small hill I’ve managed to climb, I secretly long for anyone to join me. Now I”m ready to believe there’s more power here together
And I can’t think of a better way to put it.
