While on a hike today it again hit me how much alternating between high bravery and paralyzing fear is a lifestyle for me. Sometimes I am afraid that Charles Manson’s understudy is hiding in the bushes waiting to pick at my insides with dental equipment, and sometimes I feel like I am invincible woman of the mountains, having all the resourcefulness of Superwoman. Sometimes I think men are a fabulous contrast to females, and sometimes I am scared like hell of all the muscle and alcohol that can back their stupid ideas. Sometimes I feel the animals know I am marked by God and good intentions, and other times I fear their watchful eyes and hunger. Sometimes my mind leaps limber from thought to thought and sometimes it staggers at the gate. Sometimes I feel so connected to other people, able to converse easily, and sometimes I am so incoherent and foggy, unable to trip out a smooth sentence. Sometimes I am a fool if I think love at stake, and other times I'm more concerned with examining old wounds.
So what's the message of all this? Do I think I feel more deeply than anyone else, or that I have deep mental issues? No. Well okay, maybe. Now that I am so aware of my mostly unhelpful emotions, can't I tap into the Christian and Buddhist principle of non-attachment/faith and hum at a level beyond all these emotions? Do I get to say that these emotions are mostly hallucinations and move beyond to a wrinkle-free, austere calm? Would that be much fun?
I was recently talking about a co-worker about phasing out the use of harsh chemical cleaners in our room in deference to the children's developing brains and organs, and she told me in a lovely grand manner (tinged with an appropriate amount of flippancy for delivering Truth while wiping a dirty table) that after a certain amount of higher reading, you realize that it's all spiritual. Of course my immediate reaction was to instantly agree, thus nullifying her sense of superiority, and slyly double back to arguing my case as if my viewpoint already included this highly obvious foundational point ("Well sure, but..."). I fight dirty, what can I say.
I bring this up because I do not think it is all spiritual. Whether we like it or not, we are inescapably tied to these strong, fragile bodies unless you, having read enough books, can meditate out of your body like our Buddhist friends who visit the other side of the planet. And if non-attachment means attaining a spiritual awareness that constitutes not caring about the physical needs of those less enlightened, then I don't want it (*). Who would give up community for lone enlightenment? That's where my loyalties lie, at least. Give me the rough and tumble of flesh and hunger and unity and love, of separation and reunion and birth and dying. Maybe I'll be more enlightened next year, but this year I am changing too many diapers (**).
*I know right now I am choosing to paint feeling strong emotions as being opposed to being more spiritually aware, but I do not think that they are so dynamically opposed. I think I'm just ticked that my co-worker shrinking from inconvenience and change by trying to say that spiritual awareness means not worrying about the physical well-being of others.
**Probably at least 13/day, FYI.
