Sunday, June 14, 2020

There is no going back.


Crossing the Rubicon

“We’ve crossed the consciousness Rubicon.”
Caroline Myss

          Have you ever seen or heard something that blew up all your previous assumptions and, in that moment of awareness, known there would be no going back? You cannot un-know it, and you can’t pretend you didn’t see or hear it. But you want to with every fiber of your being. You want to go back to when you were unconscious, but you can’t. That’s what Caroline Myss means by crossing the wholistic, or consciousness, Rubicon. Here’s a crude example: Someone shows you a video of your spouse cheating with another person. You may have suspected in your heart of hearts that this was happening, but as long as you didn’t see it or hear it yourself, you could pretend it didn’t. Now you can’t pretend. You’ve crossed the consciousness Rubicon, and there’s no going back.
          You see, if we can plead unconsciousness, we have a pass—a “get out of jail free” card, so to speak. I talked with a friend of mine yesterday about growing up in the South in the pre-civil rights era. We could deny our own racism with thoughts like, “I’m not a racist. I’m NICE to black people.” We may even have considered ourselves to be benefactors to people of color—giving them jobs in our houses and giving them our hand-me-down clothing. Since they lived in a different part of town, we did not have to witness their poverty; and they attended different schools so we never saw how impoverished their education may have been. When a black person succeeded in rising above all that, it was a phenomenon. An aberration. And, besides we ourselves were poor people so we didn’t enjoy any privilege at all. That’s what unconsciousness looks like. We were stupidly oblivious.
          But that era is over. Did you see the photos of the anti-racism protests in Germany yesterday? The largest crowds ever. There will be no more unconsciousness—though there may still be denial. Denial is different simply because it means we know, but we choose to ignore. We can deny, but we still know. There is no going back. Consciousness only moves forward—toward wholeness.
Racism is part of our old paradigm, but going forward, it will not be. We have hit critical mass. Our souls have led us there to help us heal, and attempt to repair the damage we’ve done. We may try to rationalize away our own racism, but that doesn’t make it so. As Caroline Myss says, “The mind can make you feel better, but only the soul can heal.” It’s time to do our soul work and heal racism forever.

                                                  In the Spirit,
                                                  Jane

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