Quiet Revolution

 Mine has been a quiet revolution. I think if there was a theme to my revolution it would be humility.  Each experience that requires evolving suddenly or gradually as in overthrowing a previous thought process, belief, or value, is often more humbling than the last.  They come with an awareness that I know nothing and everything I need to at the time if I choose to stay aware.  If I remain open to the truth, it becomes more clear there is no absolute.   

Perusing the aisles of a local thrift shop is a regular vice of mine.  I can spend hours sifting through used clothes for that one treasure.    This day I was drawn first to the used book bin and my eyes landed on a familiar face and head of amazing curls.   It was a signed copy of Revolution of the Soul by author and yogi, Sean Corn.   I had heard about this book but had yet to read it so I was excited about this find. I hadn't actually read the book yet but the title kept drawing me in so I flipped open to a random page and read where my eyes landed. " All moments and all people hold a mirror up to us and reflect back those places within ourselves that are separate from our own light". "The teacher is in me and in you, in the easy times and the hard ones".   Both of these passages popped off of the one page I flipped to and I sat with both of them that day.   They were part of Sean Corn's revolution and now part of my own.  These small nudgings forward in our revolution and ultimate evolution are everywhere for each of us asking us to evolve and challenge our own beliefs and ways of being in the world.  Perhaps just the title of the book served as a way for me to examine further this aspect of revolution. Regardless, it led me here. 

No matter what age or stage in life we find ourselves, the revolution doesn't extinguish. In my experience,   it doesn't become an occasional situation that challenges our way of thinking.   I am and continue to be amazed by how often I am jolted awake by another uncomfortable realization or understanding. Only uncomfortable in the sense that it forces me to lie down or release a tired narrative or stand up for something or someone I may not have felt compelled to in the past. The revolution or overthrowing of past resolve doesn't always challenge in a way that condemns or removes something. Often it can be a nourishing, reassuring and supportive realization that offers something I didn't know I needed.   

I can remember after my dog passed a few years ago, vowing I would not get another one. The idea I was hanging onto at the time was that I didn't need another dog and they involved commitment and work that I didn't have space for.  A year and a bit passed and a black poodle puppy was making its way into my heart.   I remembered what great dogs poodles were for therapy dogs and thought of how he would make a perfect pup for my daughter with complex needs.   Still hesitant and wavering, I was given more information about him which included his birthdate. It happened to be the day my dog, Zoe had passed.   Coincidence perhaps but I took it as the sign I needed to get what I thought would be a support animal for my daughter. We called him Shanti, meaning peace, and although he didn't become an official therapy dog, he has become my peace and therapy daily.  I was so relieved that I didn't hold onto this tired narrative of not needing a dog and that I allowed myself to receive what ended up bringing more peace and unconditional love into my life. 

Personal revolution can be scary when it brings sudden awareness that may put us on defense because of our attachments and who and what we identify with. I think of the tiny minuscule things that I have attached to and then reevaluated.  I love the example in the early years of my relationship with my now-husband when he wanted to make me supper. I chided in about how you were supposed to cook this particular item and he had another way. I was certain that this was not the best choice because wasn't this the identified way I had learned and known?   It turned out supper was delicious and indeed there was another way.  So much over-identification with the people, habits, and ideas of our past and upbringing inhibits our revolution.  We often feel like we are being disloyal or just have mixed feelings about stepping away from the familiar but I remind myself that our ancestors were always searching for new ways and opportunities and they continue to live through us and I am sure they are moved by how we are finding another way for ourselves.  Finding another way for me can often be a feeling of being guided, led through, or to the thing that will bring a sometimes sudden, complete change in my view, opinion, or experience when I allow it.  When I call it a quiet revolution, I don't for a minute mean to diminish the power of the transformational events that can bring me to my knees with humility, challenge me to a place of complete denial or self-righteousness before I succumb to what is too obvious now to ignore.

The quiet revolution has moved me away from screaming into the abyss of the online world. Although I have compassion for the me that will circle back to this at times. Herein lies the humility and the knowing that this is my revolution alone and it will never take me away, for long, from being humbled by my humanness.  Whether it is the story of turkey in captivity that brought me to my final experience of eating meat and integrating that I did eat meat and enjoy it for forty-plus years. Or the experiences I had before the birth of my second daughter that led me to a belief that having an autistic child was not something I could do and a few months later I gave birth to my Maya.  Never diminishing the challenges of having a child with complex needs, it is in truth that having any child is challenging and that all children have complex needs, some just more obvious in the beginning than others. My revolution also led me to a realization, from this experience that  I not only could have this reality but that my daughter would be one of the most beautiful gifts and messenger of the potential for a much more fulfilling life away from stereotypes, norms, and societal expectations. Where I would be invited to be a much better version of myself. I could overthrow my narrow view of what my life should be or what others thought would be a worthy one.   I am challenged to transform through the knowledge offered again and again, by the right book, podcast, protest, conversation with someone close or a stranger. Now, like aging makes way for any remaining guards to be let down and armor dropped, my revolution continues. Making peace with myself a practice, allows me to stand up for the rights of others to fully be who they are regardless of my past perceptions and the revolution continues.   

There are a lot of messages that say our revolution must be muscled through, that we must strive, work hard, persevere in order to develop new consciousness.   But what if again, our revolution involves realizing that we can evolve and revolutionize by remaining open, soft, nurturing to ourselves and others. What if the feminine energy is really the energy of our revolution and that of the world? That we can drop another worn-out narrative of gender and embrace the feminine and masculine energy balance that is unique to each person.  Maybe by dropping pretense, empathizing, and setting healthy boundaries instead of engaging in our struggles,  armed with a metaphorical sword, we can stop over-identifying with ideologies and groups of people that keep us from fully challenging our own ways of being and maybe keep us separate from others that we don't identify with. 

Every day the revolution inside of me is not standing up armed ready to attack and reform but engages most of the time, with a soft whisper, a nudge, a lifting of a veil, a compass with a new direction, a thought that turns on a new light. Maybe you too have acknowledged the whispers or even screams to see something differently, to stand with humility, to acknowledge that there will always be a new truth revealed and a new understanding to come to. Staying open to the idea that you can't be who you are meant to be in all its forms if you attach to, grieve or regret who you once were.  Maybe you will remain committed and fluid with your inner revolution so you can be part of the revolution happening all around us.