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An Essay/Article
In a former life, I knew a girl who was reared to overextend her services to others with little regard for herself. The extent of her “charity” knew little bounds, as this is what others expected from her. From what I could see, those around her behaved under the belief that she was innately endowed with plenty and therefore naturally possessed enough to go around. Over the course of her young life, they pilfered her without positive compensation, exchange or encouragement until she became a distant woman of unnerving gaze and delicate health, slightly crude now to needs, complaints or concerns of others. With popular declarations regarding our current ripple in time as heralding the era of Aquarius, emphasizing all its hyped up humanitarian bells and altruistic whistles, I tend to look past the economically bereaved and systemically disenfranchised, holding a great concern for people like the woman I mention. Because truth is, this planet is already home to individuals for whom the act of selfless living has always been and for them, harboring overly idealistic lollipop hopes for the next several hundred years has little to do with it. I have to question where these people (and their offspring) will be in the future if they do not learn how to nourish themselves and establish healthy boundaries during the oncoming years when all around them alarms are sounding due to a fleeting case of viral social externalism.
Certainly, this world is always in need of more love, patience, compassion, and tolerance, but just as it is important to give these qualities, likewise it is doubly important to receive them. It does not take much philosophical argument to agree universally, that realistically one cannot give or healthily extend to another sustenance they also lack or flat out, do not have. Participation in such a cycle registers in my mind as cancerous. Without establishing a healthy flow of energy, the act begins to rob vital life force from other facets of the physical and spiritual body. It is also not hard to fathom that extensive utilization of this cycle, eventually impacts the overall well being negatively.
In western tidings, we are often told that, it is better to give than to receive. As with quite a few things, I think this common encouragement deserves greater discernment of application. While this rule may apply in strictly material matters, to integrate it also within the fundamentals of social interaction is a grave mistake. Holistic peace is not always the effect felt from postures of servitude nor is pandering without boundaries to the affairs of others an avenue whose selfless drives always takes us where we need to be. Evidence of this truth is felt on the occasion we all may experience via heaviness in the chest or knotting of the shoulders encountered when we act against our own instinct under the pressure of others wishes.
As we all move forward pushing past the gates of 2012 and beyond more than just the obvious outmoded standards and approaches to communal living have to evolve. If the sensational heights within any new age are to be achieved, every slab and crumb of the rhetoric by which we live our lives must be inspected (minus biases) and if need be, honestly redirected toward an understanding of harmony that is practical, implementable and within realistic range in comparison to the current aptitude of man. None of us can truly give claim to loving and honoring another if we do not first love and honor ourselves in ways that go beyond monetary and social entrapments. A true belief in advocating equality for all is one that is first born within the self, upon acknowledgment of the tenants surrounding our own self worth and its rightful value in the enhancement and blossoming of the collective earth experience.
While it is not my intent to sour festive expectations of what will hopefully be some fantastic celestial punch, as I look to the future with everyone else, I too desire to see the positive effects from real and applicable change. Planting my stake also, in hopes for a brighter future for all, allow me to part by stating that it is only by paying respect to the conditioning of our own personal stations in life that we honestly realize the beauty in others having freedom to do the same and can passionately contribute in creating a society that benefits one and all.
Travel Light,
Jacqui Walker Gray
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