Collective Pain

Greetings all,

Happy Hunter's Moon to you.  I hope you are enlivened by the light of the full moon this weekend.  For me it has been so intense it seems lately like everyday is a full moon.

I've talked a lot about opening to the more difficult emotions and feelings lately.  A lot of people I know have also been processing some very deep wounds.  It seems like right now everything is rising to the surface.  I've made big changes in the past year, and I would like to take even bigger steps in the year to come.  However in order to do that there is a lot that needs to be dealt with and transmuted.  I think all of us are relating with that right now.  I've talked to several people this week who have been having the same exact symptoms both emotionally and physically that I have been experiencing.

I have heard it said that our body is the reflection of our unconscious mind.  Well mine has been pulled tighter than a violin string lately.  On top of my own issues, which could be a multivolume set, there is also the collective unconscious.  All of us experiencing similar symptoms have not only our personal wounds, but are also feeling the collective unconscious of the world right now.  You don't even need to be psychically empathic anymore for this to be true, between 24 hours news channels, Facebook, and Twitter.  We are afloat amidst a sea of information all clamoring for our attention, with most of it couched in the most provocative terms to claim our eyes for ad revenue.  This election cycle has also been particularly gruesome. Election years are always periods of heightened anxieties.  There is so much going on beyond that, between constant revelations of racially charged violence of police against people of color, threats of terrorism, the looming of a bigger war sparked off by the conflict in the middle east, and the economic and social unrest here in America we've frankly got a lot of real problems in front of us.  So it's no wonder that we may all be feeling a bit tense in our bodies.

I am tempted to unplug and disengage.  In fact it might not be a bad idea.  However as a majority of my business comes from my online presence I sort of have to stay plugged in.  Still I am having to find ways to disengage.  It is hard.  I am empathic so even if I go on a news blackout with extremely limited time on social media for postings and quick messages I am plugged in on a spirit level to the mass of feelings we as human beings are generating.  There is a lot of fear right now and it hurts...literally.  I feel your disenfranchisement in my body and it hurts, hell the other day I was so tense I was nauseated. We have pitted each other against ourselves.  Many of you perhaps don't feel it as viscerally as some of the more psychically tuned people do, but I assure you this climate of fear and aggression is affecting you.  It may be as simple as a stress headache, or a bit more aggressive driving attitude (I have noticed of late that people are driving crazy).  You may be losing sleep due to some general anxiety.  Stressed out fearful people are easier to manipulate.

So why am I telling you all this.  Well one, I feel like I am confessing as to why I haven't been as productive lately.  Secondly, I think many of us are beating up on ourselves for feeling so vulnerable right now.  It's hard to get out and make the world a better place when we are in pain.  Left or right, black or white, immigrant or indigenous, we are all in this together.  Your pain is my pain and vice versa.  After the dust settles on this heightened time we will all have to roll up our sleeves and get to work to solve the problems we are faced with.  We are not islands, we are the drops of water in the ocean.

Do do you find yourself achy, tired, and anxious?  Are you in fight or flight mode?  Do you feel a deep need to withdraw from the world?  Well cheer up you're not alone.  Talk to people.  Connect with those you love and trust.  Maybe confess how you feel.  Perhaps together you can carry the weight of these heavy times with less of a burden.  Come together, sing, laugh, and play because the woes of the world will be there, but so too will the blessings.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle