Taking a stand.

You've heard this axiom before, right? Stand for something or fall for everything?

I agree, but still am particularly cautious about what I stand behind. Because with wisdom comes responsibility. So to take a stand for something, in my opinion, implies responsibility to whatever you are claiming.

And responsibility is inherent of our behaviour--not who but how we be. Thus, being responsible becomes a character thing, quite legitimately being the change.

It's the end of mercury retrograde. That means that most of this week I've spent in review, not writing much because of all the watching. Lots of troubled stuff and lots of mundane, the samskaras surfacing. This is happening for us all right now, this is one of the inner mysteries it just is. Much as possible I've tried to merely witness what my spirit is showing. Allowing the automatic surfacing to guide me deeper into my experiences in life as a conscious, open person.

The review is almost over now though, it is Sunday, I have one week left of work then five days before I start my move! I am excited, terrified, and eager for it all. I am trying to stay perched on the edge of my life, of my daily experiences as a newcomer to the world: open, engaged, in awe.

Which brings me to the beach yesterday, Ocean City, a storm coming up. The way it moved caught me in that place of wild women, of wild sacred spirit: The sacred inner S/HE/IT. That tension of compulsion how sumptious it is. The authentic struggle, listing between the tides of self and inner speak and passion and the real day-to-day walking in the world of job and friends, places to be and stuff to do. In that center place, in the Great Still where the wild yowl of potential and passion surrender to the practical every day--in there the ocean air engorged with the thunder air coming from the north and I literally felt my rebel yell echo against a curve in the Atlantic sky.

That echo. A reminder of the power of the unseen magic of the world.

It was Mandy, Shannon, me. Two, then three, then four of Shannon's other friends with us. Not a lot of talking, just sitting, and some laughing in the sand and let me tell you nothing in life feels like a thunder storm moving in over the ocean and when it came the ocean turned the weirdest, most melancholy green. Then it was black all over the sky, and then the first flash and we got up to go. It'd been hot up til then but the night before outside the club the air was coming off the sea. And then yesterday the storm came and was followed by perfect blue sky, but by last night the wind was blowing like mad, the weather'd shifted, the humidity that brought the lightening and thunder is gone and in Easton today I have to have a sweatshirt on over my tee. And most of all, that place in me, the center place is awakened and charged~engaged by the magic that the natural world rooted in me.

I am taking a stand. It came around this morning after a spontaneous talk with Rudy-Satva, after remembering the impression of Shaman Bob last night in the middle of my deep, deep and otherwise dreamless sleep, after remembering that alluring reminder of magic behind the thunderocean wind. The veil over this world, the power of the unseen. It is real it is real it is real but it is up to us to walk that reality in to being. And so there is the one thing to which I am taking a stand, putting my responsibility behind. All else, the book, the boarding house, OC, Pac NW, Baltimore or Mexico, Hawaii or Crownsville, travelling or staying still~is secondary to this one thing.

Opening up to the Power inside. The deep, unyeilding power within. Being responsible to it, being responsive to it. Recognizing as within, so without. And from within, from that inner spot where I own myself and open up to the world of who I am, so too do I converge with the outter world and the day to day. It is this power that connects me to you, and to her, and to him, and to the earth and to the thunder and to the sky and to the sea. Elemental, because atomically none of us are any different and atoms react to the energy of other atoms. Get it? Within is my duty, yes, but the the living of it day to day is what matters most to me. Being struck and awed by the outter expression of thunder and electric which too is inside of me. Being struck and present in the exchange with a stranger on the street, or with mom on the phone. Being aware of my reactions, responsible to them. It is what I believe we each are charged with doing. Illuminating ourselves, and living this light, one person to one person to whole groups at a time.

Are you paying attention? Am I paying attention? To the faintest inner stirring, to the thunder rebel yell, to the conversation, to the image in the dream? Am I telling myself it doesn't matter, or am I opening up unto the mystery, and encouraging the open moment with what could be.

Consciousness, for lack of a better term and in order to make no religious association. What I am standing for, being alive, being awake, being conscious to me. What if none of it matters.

Sure that's probably true. But what if I decide it does? What if by virtue of that decision, of that one thing to stand for~it does?

Then what?

Then I take my stand.