Reflections…

“On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.”

From the Inaugural poem by Elizabeth Alexander

The light she’s referring to is, as she says, the mightiest word: “What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light.”

I am struck and filled and overflowing with a sense of awe. This language, these things of which I’ve been thinking, feeling, teaching, writing – they’ve found an audience with the world.

Clearly I’m not the first to use these words. But I do often feel…well, that many consider me a bit of a…hippie-freak, or what others would call a heathen. I wouldn’t say I feel misunderstood, but I certainly don’t feel as though I’m swimming with a very big school of fish.

And by my nature, the sense of swimming against the crowds is fairly uncomfortable. And expressing any level of faith, let alone a strong one, using strong words, in public…well, it’s taken no small amount of courage, and faith (!), for me to do it.

I find myself choosing my words carefully when talking with “normal” people, catching myself when I begin to speak of a person’s energy, or the energy exchanges I so frequently witness within a given situation.

But Ms. Alexander did not filter her words for “normal” people.  She wrote and spoke them straight from her heart.

I’ve been thinking about this lately, before today’s events.  How can I ask to become more connected, when in the next breath I apologize for my connection? How can I invite openness, as a healer, to those healing powers that are not mine at all but are something much greater than me, and then in the next moment make a disclaimer about my openness?

In doing this, I’m holding myself back.  When I look at the people I most admire, they are the souls who know their inner light and do not attempt to dim it.  They do not worry that others around them may not understand.  They are the ones who let their light shine out of them just as brightly as it has come into them.  This is precisely why I so deeply admire them.

Today’s Inaugural Ceremony was steeped, for those who were listening, in the language of Spirit. As the President himself wisely noted, we need not split hairs about the name of this spirit: “For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers.”  No, we need only to invite that spirit into our daily lives.

We are on the brink, the brim, the cusp, as Ms. Alexander pointed out. I, for one, am ever-more committed to playing my part in bringing this deep, unearthly love, this widening pool of light, to the fore.

I will let my light shine, and I will not make apologies for it.