One thing I like about pot is that it takes me to a non-self-judging place inside, where every thought and feeling is acceptable and lovable and nothing I’ve ever done calls for punishment or guilt. 

Heartbreak Isn’t Any Easier When You’re Stoned

My heart is breaking for our democracy. Something I took for granted all my life.

Lamar Alexander’s statement yesterday that was a masterwork of gaslighting. This old man is ending his decades-long career by capitulating to the devil, harming his country.

Yes I Said That

I posted similar words, and even more vitriolic ones, on Facebook.

In one post I even wished suffering on GOP senators.

Feeling It Through

My friend Dan commented (on Facebook), “I look forward to your next post about deep compassion. It’s quite the ping pong game. All I know is that love will win in the end.”

On a stoned walk, I thought about that. Of course I hope he’s right (that love will win in the end – whatever “the end” means). And I recalled this touchstone quote from St. Francis (from Love Poems from God by Daniel Ladinsky): 

“Can true humility and compassion exist in our words and eyes unless we know we too are capable of any act?“

So why haven’t I been able to access ANY of that humility and compassion as I’ve watched the impeachment trial unfold? Do I not know I too am capable of any act? 

I don’t necessarily see the answers to such questions when I’m stoned (though sometimes I do!). But pot always affords me, at least, the inner space to see what the elemental questions are and to “hang out with them” in an easy, interested, nonjudgmental way. I get to look at what’s there, inside me, in a way I don’t (or maybe even can’t) usually.

Of course I see that fear is part of the answer. I’m afraid of what this unholy farce of a trial means for my own life, for the lives of everyone I know, for the futures of the young people I love. 

So I feel hatred because I fear. 

And there is a deeper truth too. (At least one.): I fear because I have a belief that things are not right in the universe. This should not be happening. That scares the shit out of me. No wonder I’m mad.

But Of Course…

There is soooo much that should not be happening. 

Sentient beings in agony and misery all over the planet. 

Sentient beings insensible to the suffering of other sentient beings, all over the planet. 

We actually have a U.S. senator who bragged, in her 2014 election campaign commercials, that she grew up castrating pigs.

A Path to Peace?

Years ago, when Trump announced he was pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords, I told my godson Mikiah (Dan’s son, as it happens), “My heart is grieving because I so deeply want for you to have a world that’s at least as livable as the one we have now, when you are my age.” 

And he said, “And I so deeply want for you not to worry about things that aren’t under your control.”

So if I look at it the way Mikiah suggests, the question becomes … “Even knowing what I know, can I walk with peace in my heart? Do I DESERVE peace, while so many others suffer, and while my godson and other young people may suffer in the future?” 

Actually, that’s a simple one to answer because my heart knows that everyone deserves peace. Everyone, without exception. Even when I hate people, my heart knows that. (As Walt Whitman once wrote: “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.”)

But Doesn’t It Beg the Question…?

DO I have any control over world events? IS there something I can do to influence the next election*, to combat climate change? 

I think these are sane, worthwhile questions. I like to ask them over and over and over. And let them inspire me to act.

But if I imagine, subconsciously, that whether I truly deserve peace or not hinges in some way on the answers to these questions … then the questions are not helpful.

May you walk in peace this week. (And me too.) 

(In a way that is a modest wish. I could ask for more than a week, for all of us. But that’s all that feels feasible right now, sadly. That’s all my heart feels brave enough to ask for in this moment. Maybe you can ask for more.)

   ***

* Kudos to my friend Barbara, who is now volunteering with Change the Conversation. Great stuff, Barb! And THANK YOU again! Thanks for this link too.

–Marc