A member of our tribe recently mentioned she was exhausted from maintaining a neutral position in today's climate of dividing people into one belief camp or another.
It brought to mind a play I was once in called The Crucible, Arthur Miller's powerful work about the Salem witch trials, written as a protest against the McCarthy-era communist blacklisting. What Miller brilliantly displayed was the way perfectly normal people could become swayed into taking previously unimaginable actions when they're gripped with fear.
I played Mary Warren, the only one of the girls who wavers between following her wanton, compelling peers and the God-fearing adults. As the director explained to me, this role represents the audience, who also can't decide where the truth lies: with the girls experimenting with dark magic and accusing those grown-ups they disliked with demonic possession, or the law-abiding adults, who saw the girls as hysterical and even ridiculous, never suspecting how dangerous they could be.
Ultimately and devastatingly, the pressure to conform born of fear wins out and authorities are forced to choose from within that fear, bringing a bitter end to some perfectly decent people.
Miller was warning us.
I've never forgotten the discomfort that this piece introduced into my life back then, but it's never been so real, front and center as it is today, fueled by very similar forces.
Since many of us are in the same boat, I thought I might try to address it from the perspective of spiritual evolution.
The Squeeze is on...
"Divide and conquer" has long been used as a method of dominance. Though we all understand the concept, the trick is to recognize when and to what extent it's happening. It's sometimes hard to tell when you're passionately embroiled in it.
However, when we step out of 3D reality, we can see more easily that on the grand stage there is a masterful hand at work. Pick an issue, and the hand has been orchestrating a ramp up at every turn, forcing us to split apart and take sides.
It's understandable! It's all too easy to unwittingly be swept up in principles and rhetoric that appeal to our ideology, and the next thing we know, we've been nudged into taking a position.
But sadly, in today's world, it's not just a benign position - by simply making a private decision, we suddenly find ourselves right in the fray of a heated battlefield!
Climate change, racial issues, gender issues, reproductive issues, political positions, mask wearing, and especially vaccination issues - through all of these, the hand steers us increasingly towards bifurcation..
Why?
Because "a house divided against itself cannot stand." (Thank you, Lincoln.)
Once we realize that we are being played like pawns on a chessboard pressured to conform, we can step out of that fiery, chaotic reality and take a deep, cleansing breath into our sovereignty. Ahhh...
Here, we're in a safety zone where ideas can be considered far from the push-pull of the powers that be.
The truth shall set you free...
So we set about searching for information, but trying to nail down "the Truth" nowadays is just about impossible.
But, in the land of our fearless sovereignty, we can examine ourselves through the lens of the truths we can rely on (and there ain't that many!).
We can say that, in essence, we're all One, all made of the same stuff, and showing up here as a unique fractals of Source (please insert name you prefer).
We can also say that if you had to boil it down to a word, we know we're an expression of the Source Field, which is Love.
Taking it another step, we might even surmise that we came here specifically now to explore the notion of being a human in a world that is under tremendous pressure to evolve.
Perhaps we wanted that for ourselves, too, and so we came to participate and evolve ourselves.
OK so far?
Now, how do we reconcile the pressure to choose a side with the desire to evolve?
"Yes, and" ...
First, let's get out of duality and into non-duality.
Yes, I believe we can take a stand - after all, it's not an inherently bad thing to believe in certain things and stand by them.
And, it's the vilification of the opposing side that gets us into trouble.
Let's use a current hot topic as an example: will you/have you decided to take a shot or not?
No matter what you have decided, you, as a sovereign being, have the right to make that choice.
However, you do not have the right to denounce anyone else's choice, no matter how hard you are pushed by the hand to do so. Otherwise, you are participating in a neighbor-against-neighbor scenario that plunges you right back down into 3D.
Instead, granting others the sovereignty that you claim for yourself is the evolved way to go.
If that's a challenge to do, I recommend using the Infinity Wave for its loving, compassionate qualities.
The Wave instills a sense of ok-ness with whatever another person has decided for themselves because it calms and elevates your own field with love and compassion for your experience. It replaces disappointment with respect and acceptance, even though another's decision may be heartbreaking for you and not what you would choose for yourself.
The spiritually evolved opportunity...
Now we can see that it's not so much about being neutral as it is about practicing loving non-attachment as we fully accept another's choice with compassion, even while knowing what we know and recognizing the potential personal loss that it represents.
In my humble opinion, this is an elevated, expanded position, not born of 3D life.
I trust that this community can accomplish this, and by doing so, can be a model for others who have gotten carried away by the rampage of fear that threatens to push us back into Salem.
Keep strong, my friends - I love and appreciate you!
Infinite blessings,
Hope
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