There is such power in a drum. It is a heart beat...a ship moving through stormy seas...a horse cantering across a prairie and a way to communicate with the soothing energy that lies deep inside beneath all the clamoring of the external world. It beats a quiet comfort to the despair I feel when confronted by the true nature of this country I call home. The black represents the dark matter...the shadow and all that is born out of the darkness. That is part of me. The white represents all that emerges from the pure light...the high pinnacle of thought and feeling and the pureness of the fresh fallen blanket of snow. That is part of me. The red speaks of new birth and the heart and the courage to express that heart. This too is part of me. Sometimes I forget that life is not black and white...but it is made of black and white. There is truth to be found in both sides of the spectrum as there is truth to be found in the polarity of races and religions and even political stances. Pitting one against the other is folly because where that leads is into rigid adherance to either one shade or the other, thereby destroying both. I have gleaned this from passing through the stages of my own life.
There was a time when I feared the black...the shadow...the mystery and the unknown other. I once discovered my bias when a friend took me fishing years ago. At the time, I was learning my relationship with food. I believed that if I could kill and clean and cook an animal, I had the right to consume it for food. If I could not see myself killing the animal, I did not have permission to eat it. So, when I caught 4 flounder on our fishing expedition, I was determined to clean it and cook it myself. I went about the job and ate the fish before I realized I had cleaned and removed only the white meat. There is a dark meat to flounder as well...just like chicken. I was always a white meat chicken eating gal too. Something came home to roost when I realized I had made use of only half of the available meat. I felt supremely guilty. I've moved on from that but feel grateful for the lesson. Years later, I became aware of the same bias I have toward myself and my humanity. I often set myself up wanting only to identify with the white side of things. By doing so, I created a violence inside myself to what would try and emerge from the depths of darkness and despair. If only one side was right and good and true, I was trying to kill the whole other side of myself. It was folly...a folly I see playing out every day in my country. Anyone taking a stance with only white defiles the beauty of the dark. Conversely...those that empathize only with the dark side of things deny the pure beginnings within the vast white field. Both sides diminish their possibilities by attaching themselves to one or the other.
The great unifier of the opposites lies in the heart of the matter...that both sides give rise to noble and magnificent beginnings as well as to their opposite. Most of my life has been spent in a mistaken attempt to hide my heart so as not to get too hurt by living life. As a teen I smoked cigarettes to appear cool. I didn't want anyone to know my true heart. After many years of doing this to myself, I discovered I had become a stranger to my own heart. I set off on a quest...a move to a new environment...a challenge to redicover the heart I had hidden from myself. 16 years of school taught me to ignore the unique messages of my heart in favor of the way things should be done. I was supposed to be like everyone else if I was going to be successful in the world. Misinformed, yes. But that was the lesson. As I watch the unfolding drama of our national identity crisis being played out on the political arena, I am aware that the US of A is passing through the same purifying fires as I did on a personal scale. The hope that I find is what Ive learned from my own changing conciousness. If I can emerge from the war of black and white with understanding of the need for both sides, maybe it is possible for a leadership based on heart to emerge as well.
But...if that is to happen, someone has to wear their heart on their sleeve. Someone has to own the good and evil in each side of the debate. Someone has to stand up for the heart of America. Personally, I experience a quiet trust in the Rose Breasted Grosbeak. His colors cover all the bases...and his clear melodious song has the power to uplift and make glad the heart. My new leader teaches me to wear my heart proudly and to share my feelings as I have never done before...without self doubt and without reservation. The answer I've been looking for is simple.
Use all your colors. Find a good tree and sing your heart out till your breath is done.
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