Confession time: Independence Day in the US is just about my least favorite holiday – followed closely by Gouge Your Own Eyeballs Out Day. I mean, I love my country but …
First of all, if you are any kind of a student of history, you know that the horrors of slavery and segregation were built right into our Constitution from the get-go. Slaves were never, ever gonna be free. Thomas Jefferson wasn’t about do his own dirty work on that plantation of his. Nor were any of the others. They did not cast themselves into the future and imagine any other way of living. Science-Fiction hadn’t been invented yet (Mary Shelley wasn’t born until 1797), and Futurism wasn’t even a word.
Second, America got sold out to corporations years ago, so if we were honest we’d be plastering the flag with patches and decals from all the corporate overlords who really make the laws in this country. The Star Spangled Banner would have to be completely rewritten. We’d have to get a Fair Use agreement from Monsanto to sing America the Beautiful.
Third, We the People are so susceptible to division and polarization that it takes a single small square of fabric to start a riot. Masks won’t protect us from guns, that’s for sure. Nothing will. Not even our own government.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the brand promises of the US were remotely true. Land of opportunity? Opportunity to work yourself to death or go bankrupt if you or a loved one get sick. Opportunity to go so deeply into debt to pay for college that you get your student loans paid off just in time to retire with far less money saved than you really need- if ever. Opportunity to get shot for a simple traffic stop if your skin happens to be the wrong color. Opportunity to skip essential doses of insulin because the pharmaceutical company jacked up the price of insulin so high you can’t afford to be diabetic anymore.
Land of the Free? If you’re White, cis, hetero and male, and have enough money, sure. All others, good luck. Women aren’t exactly free to decide what to do with their own bodies, starting with how to dress and where they can go and ending at whether they can have access to birth control or get an abortion if they truly need or desire one. Women and people of color aren’t ever free to walk home from school or work or the grocery store, or even go out for a run or take the dog for a walk, without the very real threat of some level of assault. LBGTQA+ people aren’t free to love who they choose or marry in many states, and legislation protecting their rights has been hard won and painfully lost over and over.
Home of the Brave? America is home to the biggest epidemic of toxic male insecurity on the planet, predominantly White males, and some of them are so insecure that they can’t leave their houses without their security AR-15s. How did we ever go to the grocery store without “good” guys protecting us from the bad lettuce before? I just don’t even know.
So as we head into this Hellscape Holiday once again, I have found my normal background levels of snark, impatience, and general irritation spiking with astonishing regularity. I can’t bring myself to participate in this year’s big national shit show, or even, apparently, to have a modicum of respect for it, so I will instead contemplate the idea of personal independence, and along the way chat a bit about interdependence, too.
Declare Your Independence
There’s nothing like walking away from a toxic, controlling relationship into the clear light of freedom to cause one to experience giddy happiness over the damndest things. Late night drive through food because … you can. Picking curtains you love because … you can. Sooooo many candles – because you can. Cutting off all your hair and going full pixie just because you need to know … you can. Buying your first solo Solstice tree and all kinds of trimmings because shit that’s pretty and damn that’s cool and wow, I have always wanted one of those! Answering to no one but your own internal compass because yours hasn’t been used in so long it’s begging like a puppy to get some exercise.
Okay, maybe all that was just me. (All of that was me a few years back, all true.) There’s nothing like contrast to make you see how the way you were living was smothering you.
But you don’t have to claw your way out of a bad relationship to experience freedom. Hopefully, you never get stuck in a bad relationship! Unfortunately, all too many people, of every possible sexual identification, will. Insecurity, toxicity, narcissism, and rage all go with fear, and fear the number one product of the way we live here in the US. And we can’t ever be completely free of it, because even if we are not fearful, our neighbor might be, or our boss, or our partner, or the Mayor, or the Governor, or the President … and everything anyone anywhere does has a ripple effect on everyone else on the planet, some way more than others. Look no further than Joe Manchin and Mitch McConnell for the most toxic examples of this.
No one is an island. We all create ripples that eventually wash up on somebody else’s shore, no matter how careful and mindful we are. And other ripples wash up on our shores, too. The way we deal with those ripples can have a calming effect, or if we react in fear and self-interest, we create a bigger wave heading back the other direction that impacts even more islands.
We can send out ripples of goodness, too, and those can help to keep the unhappier waves from getting too out of control. We are always, each and every one of us, a force for something; whether it’s net good or net uh-oh is all up to how we decide to react to challenges, and how we choose to craft our lives.
And I totally get it, I completely understand that it’s really not simple. When we are stuck in abusive situations, we don’t have as much control over our lives as we truly need to create what we really want, and escaping from those situations can be dangerous and extremely difficult. I know first hand how hard it is and how long it takes and how vigilant and careful and sneaky you have to be to make it happen. How many secrets you have to keep, how many … well, not lies, but how dishonest you have to be about what you’re doing so your abuser continues to underestimate you and think they’re in control. It’s like being a secret agent on a high-risk mission with no training and no support and no backup and no funding and the only weapons you get are your wits and your Truth. You literally have to MacGyver yourself out of there. Anybody who has escaped from that shit is a fucking hero and deserves the highest level of respect there is.
Freedom to fully embody our own highest self is possibly the most Sacred Thing there is.
The early colonists of what eventually became the United States came here, or so they claimed, to avoid religious persecution. And then proceeded to persecute the shit out of anybody who didn’t believe their way. And thought slavery was great. And felt entitled to run the indigenous people off the land because they weren’t doing anything with it and were a bunch of Godless heathens anyway. And that’s why we still can’t have nice things.
Indigenous people get it, always have. Different gods are just different ways of expressing the same truths. This is not hard. Seeking freedom to worship as they chose, the colonizers then sought freedom from having to put up with anybody else’s concept of God. Closing the mind means it stops growing. And it becomes afraid of the ideas of other people, and the skin color of other people, and the ways other people express love.
Freedom from fear doesn’t mean being in such a safe place that you no longer have to be afraid that anything bad is going to happen to you. Being free from fear means you just flat out refuse to be afraid that the sky is gonna fall on you. The sky might still fall, but it might not be a bad thing. Losing my last “real job” was the best thing that ever happened to me. Yes, it was hard, and I struggled and there were times when I didn’t know how I was going to get through the month – but I always did, and I found so many better ways to make things work, and discovered strength in myself I didn’t even know I had.
I earned the freedom to find my true Independence. Hard work? Hell yeah. But good work, because making money for yourself is much more satisfying than making it for somebody else and getting to keep just a teeny fraction of it. I learned how I am tuned – to purpose over profit; and how I need to feel – valued and appreciated; and that I need flexibility – for me and for others because life can happen sometimes and we all need to have empathy and understanding about that. I have learned that when I am working for me, work and life merge in a way that is much harder to unbalance. And I also learned that surrounding myself with people I adore and helping them enhance the quality of their lives is the best kind of “work” there is. It’s not work, it’s play, it’s joy, it’s fluttering holy ripples out into the atmosphere and watching them transform the world.
Independence means relying on yourself more, but not to the point of running yourself ragged because you don’t think you get to ask for help. Wrong! Becoming truly independent means knowing you don’t have to do it all. We can ask for help when we need it, because doing things that we’re not tuned to do takes energy away from doing the things we do best, and that’s not fair to the people who value the ways we help them live their best lives. Our independence makes us beautifully interdependent, and joyfully aware of our interdependence. We are a tapestry, each thread carefully woven with the others to make a whole picture that is far greater than anything we could be alone.
I’m independent enough to know that I don’t even have to be good at all the things it takes to be independent.
And that makes me feel safe and well and secure enough to be who I am at my most authentic. Is surrendering to your highest good really surrender? Is allowing yourself to believe in real, pure, life-affirming magic any more childish than believing in angels? Is trusting the Universe to catch you when you take a leap of faith any different than believing your dad would catch you when you jumped off the arm of the couch? I sure as hell don’t think so. Believe in magic. Trust the Universe. Surrender into your Highest Self and live your highest good. All of that, huge yes. Do it. Be it. Believe it. What else is the purpose of living? Stand in your own Truth and watch the magic happen around you.
A few weeks ago, while I was meditating I heard a woodpecker attacking my Mason bee house. This caused me some consternation, and it’s hard to meditate when you are consternating. But I heard that little voice in my head again, and this time she said, “Reach out and bat it gently away, you can do it.” And so I did, I reached out with my etheric hand and swatted the woodpecker. To my astonishment, I heard a squawk and a flutter, followed by the complete absence of any woodpeckering at all. I smiled to myself, thanked my inner voice, and went back to my meditation. That’s not a huge deal. It’s really a small thing. But if I had not worked so hard to embody my most authentic self, I never would have believed in myself enough to do that, and it gave me a glimpse of how far I have yet to go. So believe. Accept and embrace and know that continuously working toward your wholeness and independence from fear will bring you deeper into interdependence with all, and that’s when the little miracles start to populate your days.
Lovely! Thank you.
Glad it resonated! Love and hugs to you and Joan!