How to Fight Darkness with Eyes of Light

I struggle with this too. When I make my calls to my Reps or send my letters about why I am upset with certain actions or rollbacks etc, I am so angry...I am having a hard time disagreeing and staying centered. I feel so much is at stake and so many people being hurt- it’s hard for me to disagree strongly & not be angry. I am trying to realize these people are misguided, duped, and very wounded...sometimes I am more successful than others. Lately, my empathic self has been so anxious & restless. There is a heaviness I am having trouble shaking. Yoga helps, meditation helps, prayers help, and reading uplifting spiritual literature- but boy I can’t skip any of it, because then it gets worse. I know I am not the only one & when I hear the feelings & encouragement of others here & other likeminded places - it helps too. We are not alone- many of us are holding the light.

I just got this email from a reader named Christine.  It fits the journey many of us have been on this past year with the prediction process.  (She compliments me in a way that is nice although not sure is true because I struggle with the issue, but her main point is the process she describes.) She called it:

A Fairytale for Wisdom Warriors

Once upon a time there was a group of talented light warriors who predicted the future with profound accuracy.

They predicted a time of darkness and chaos for the US and to lesser degree, the world.

Their gifted leader, Jeanne, deftly managed the group. She kept the ever expanding website updated, facilitated classes and Read the Future meetings, and led one-on-one sessions with clients. It was a huge job. To all tasks Jeanne brought compassion and a deep, loving conviction that despite the present turmoil, a positive future was possible for the US.

But over time, this work took a personal toll on its members.

Due to their sensitivity, they experienced the negative events of the day multiple times. Once when the event was predicted, again when the event was posted to the website, and finally when the event happened.

These luminous beings felt their light diminish and found it hard to maintain equilibrium.

Then the most extraordinary thing happened.

Each member of the group was visited by huge numbers of angels; Jeanne herself had over ten thousand angels supporting her. When the light workers were weary or discouraged, the angels gleefully showered them with limitless love.

As the political and social stress increased, so did angel participation.

The light workers were raised up to a higher level of consciousness; by association the consciousness of their friends, family, and co-workers also increased and so it went.

There was no prediction for what happened next, the Earth’s vibration up-leveled to the point where the perpetrators of darkness transformed or disappeared.

And, believe it or not, the light workers lived happily ever after.

Note from Jeanne: Funny she used the number ten thousand angels. That's how many page views we get per day when the news is up. 

Thank-you, dear Christine.  

I would like to know the answer to this question as well. Although I never thought of the Parkland teens, or their parents, or the public response, as being "dark" or "angry". Is it really anger or is it just a passionate, proactive reaction to what happened? Being loud, passionate, intense, and demanding answers is interpreted as being "angry". Even if there is real anger, is it really all that bad? Someone once said (forgot who) that anger is a catalyst for change. As long as the anger is manifested into something positive, how can it be considered dark? If anger manifests into hate and fear, then that's something else, darkness.

I feel sorry for the word "anger" because has a negative stigma to it. Anger is considered a "fault", as if this legitimate feeling is irrational and unwarranted, as if we shouldn't be feeling it. Anger has a meaningful purpose. Like they say it's what we choose what to do with the anger that is more important. We manifest anger into something good or bad, or even both. When the Parkland kids focus on taking action, attending town halls, speaking out, going to marches, inspiring people -- instead of living in fear, passively complaining, tweeting hateful comments -- we know that this "anger" has served its higher, rightful purpose. 

I do worry about our right to protest and the First Amendment, especially when comedians are being called "dangerous". Maybe we need draft up a new amendment called "the right to ignore" so that we can refer Devin Nunes to it whenever people say things he doesn't approve of. He can exercise this right whenever his authoritarian feelings take hold.

I felt that the anger of the Parkland teens and their parents was quite beautiful and refreshing.  As I recall from Bible study days, Jesus flew into a rage when he saw money lending going on in the temple. 

And I would like to send Nunes a copy of The Right to Ignore amendment. 

This author Ann Bauer, may be onto some of the best advice I've heard on how not to become dark during these times.

Her article just came out of the WAPO on Sunday:  Our anger is poisoning us. Here’s what I learned after my son died.

Her 28 year old son  died mysteriously on Nov 4, 2016. They never found out the cause. They went into deep grief and traveled and followed the sun for many months.  Meanwhile Trump became president, but they didn't notice because they were grieving so deeply. When they returned they were shocked at what had happened to our world. "How dark, brutal and dystopian it was."  There was so much anger, she said.  

She said two helpful things to my question.

(1) We need to turn our anger into something positive.  That’s where the Parkland, Florida teens got it right. They are angry, but rather than simply raging and accusing, they are channeling their anger into purpose.  

(2) Then she said,  we need to treat ourselves and each other like her friends treated her and her husband – with kindness, tenderness, and care.

Isn't behind anger the grief for a just world that doesn't exist? A world in which everyone can thrive, and where we treat each other with kindness, compassion, tenderness and care...

I think anger is fine and I don't agree with the idea that spiritual progress means that anger is left behind. The question is, are you holding the anger or is the anger holding you? With what are you infusing your anger? With hope, a vision of a better world. Or are you infusing is with bitterness, a hurt ego in fear of the future.

Loved the article you spoke of Jeanne.  I agree with you and Tee. Anger is useful but only if it is channeled into something positive.  My practice is to do my best to channel anger into determination and be a warrior of compassion working to change myself to be more balanced and help in whatever small way I can to effect positive change in the world around me.  I love that the Parkland kids and youth across this country are determined and resolute in bringing about positive change.  Such a bright spot in a dark time.  I keep watching for and holding onto moments of light like this.  

I am feeling more optimistic every day, especially when I think of those kids. 

Anger...a strong feeling of displeasure! How can you not feel this today! When my sister is knocked down I feel her pain. When my brother is scared I feel his worry. Anger motivates us and provides us the energy we need to push forward the change. As Jesus knocks over the merchant tables, we are feeling the same outrage of greed, that of taking more than we need, and leaving others without. A scarcity model that has been set in place for a very long time! But this is changing! A crashing down is occurring. In our lifetime. We are moving out of the current worldview of capital dominance, of corporate greed,  of getting all that you can, and into a new worldview of compassion and care. A worldview that knows the importance of community, of family, of happiness, of love and support. It is not far off in the distance. For some of us it is now. The young people have come into this world already knowing this is the new way. They will lead us. They have an army of support! We old folk are here to encourage and support them. Enough is Enough! And...there is Enough...there is Enough for All...we just need to fix our distribution problem. Our Family will do just that!

Anger without action is disempowering. It is fear barking at the darkness, a little dog backed into a corner. Anger without action turns in on you and eats away at you. It hurts your heart too. 

Anger with some action is empowering. In this year's film The Darkest Hour, Winston Churchill raged at Hitler and then called his people to fight.  Instead of letting fear dominate the British, he inspired them to resist and fight.  [P.S. I realize Churchill had a lot of problematic traits, including I later learned after writing this post, he was racist. So I am only speaking of this example of how he handled this one moment in history depicted in the film.]

So the anger was followed by empowerment to act, a belief that they would never surrender. Meanwhile there were those in his government who wanted to surrender to Hitler in hopes of making a deal.  The rest is history. 

There can be no justice without action. Action is our creative voice of change. Good leaders empower others into action.

I love this remarkable set of conversations. I remember reading Marianne Williamsons earlier book

"A return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles" and its belief that we have two primary emotions love and fear. Not love and hate, for hatred is created by our fear of others, fear for survival, fear in all ways. That extension would include guilt and all other things brought up here. It is such a big change in the way we think and helps change, in many respects, how we look at all dark emotions. 

That era was my introduction into accepting new thoughts in the new thought movement and set me on my course of looking at how I saw my own shadow self,  the deep emotions I carried that I did not see much less admit.

The Parkland students are huge to me. May their movement be the first of many to move us to critical mass and a major shift.

I felt such shift potential in many events now from the royal wedding where the groundswell of love filled and lifted my heart to the recent celebrity suicides of Kate Spade and Chef Anthony Bourdain.

The darkness is creating great anxiety in an already anxiety ridden world and historical time.

What is the answer? To me the answer is very much like a Buddhist koan.

 continue into next post....

Continued from my preceding post:

This poem:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Rainer Marie Rilke

Rainer Marie Rilke

Perhaps just more questions but the conversation and dialogue is the teaching and the learning.  I treasure this thread in its entirety.  We are all on our right paths just approaching the center in so many ways from so many directions. Our crosses to bear and to walk with perhaps..The endless cycle and all its meanings.

I want to click my ruby slippers in so many ways on so many days.

Michele, thank you for such beautiful words!  

I read Williamson's book long ago and found that so many things she said, (which by the way, have to give credit to the Course of Miracles that she studied), I knew were true.  

I remember especially what she said about how karma works. She said that even if what you have done does not literally come back to you, you will believe it is coming back on you.  So in that way, you will experience the karma of your actions.  When we lament that the Koch family, the Trump family, the Mercers, and Putin are not getting their just deserts, we forget about the fear that these people live with.  They know what they've done and they are constantly afraid.  

As an example of how karma works via the mind -- Harvard University did a study of the ultra wealthy, i.e., people with over $50 million. They found that they felt financially insecure, that they felt insecure in spite of having more money than they would need in their lifetimes.   On average, these folks believed  they would require 25% more money to feel safe.  So even if karma does not appear to be working in a person's life, it is working in the person's mind. I'm not judging people for their wealth, just pointing out that it doesn't automatically provide security if there is karma associated with it. 

I love the idea that there is only love and the lack of love, or light and the lack of light. Fear comes from our blindness to the light.  Hate is just a defense that we have when we are afraid. Donald Trump is a dark vortex of fear. The behavior of his party's leaders is a dark hole of fear. It is no accident that they accuse people of the things they do.  Lock her up is the epitaph that arises from their own criminal actions.  They see in others the darkness in themselves.  

I love your Maria Rilke poem.  Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart.   When I find myself hating the likes of Devin Nunes, Putin, DT, I stop and ask myself what am I afraid of?  

Hatred is toxic energy, a sign of blindness, lack of faith, and a sign that I have work to do with myself. Is it my lack of faith that we will be okay? I have a knowing in my heart that we will be okay.  I have seen in visions that it will turn out well.  But it is easy to forget.  Remembering and seeing all the light is the moment of change from lower vibration to a higher wiser heart warrior vibration.  This is my chance to rise. It's hard work.  It takes a lot of self care to see through the darkness. 

Thank you, Jeanne, for this wonderfully connecting and meaningful dialogue. It connects so many spaces in the areas that are the most challenging to understand and brought me into much deeper understandings. 

I treasure the growth of so many and how one spark can illuminate vast darkness in the strike of a single match stick. Thank you for creating a safe and often very sacred space here.

Michele, loved your Buddhist poem! Great reminder to be kind and patient with our own hearts. Jeanne, love this topic and all the beautiful bright people. It is a highlight to read the many different topics, but in particular this one.

I want to address anxiety and loneliness, in light of the recent celebrity suicides. I am not sure if a understand it. I feel its different for everyone, but it does come from fear. I believe its cellular. For me it feels like a darkness that comes over me. It has definitely been prominent in my life, and more so the last 12 years. At first I thought it was menopause. It felt like the myelin sheaths around all my nerves were frayed, exposed, and my coping mechanisms were all but gone. Then, I thought, maybe its just work! I worked in emergency medicine and was a firefighter. When i couldn't go to one more fire, I retired. Now my life is calm, quiet, somewhat peaceful! I am blessed beyond belief. Yet, I still have anxiety, and at times feel lonely. I think its the time we are living in. I work on breathing through it and it passes. Last night I arrived at my ranch to quiet solitude. I looked out my window and a beautiful deer was frolicking on my lawn and kindly munching on my half eaten apricots that had fallen on the ground after the bluejays and quail had their feast. As I stood there watching, the deer came right up to my window. I had music playing and this song came on. Needless to say i was overwhelmed with gratitude. Hmm, maybe gratitude is the answer.

THIS is why we are going to be okay. These are the people that are going to save us. I am also posting this on the front page in World Predictions to make sure everyone sees this so they can hold onto these images when they are afraid or start to lose hope.

Two different videos

1. he didn't know he was being filmed
https://abcnews.go.com/US/adorable-boy-helps-elderly-woman-flight-stairs/story?id=55543071

2.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/10-year-old-girl-finds-way-to-honor-civil-rights-activist-decades-after-his-death/

With so many hurting, so many feeling loss, or lost or hopeless, I was reminded this morning of a prose poem and this quote by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, American poet, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychoanalyst and author of "Women Who Run With the Wolves."

"Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good."

I was drawn to write about an experience I had several years ago, and addition prose by the same poet in a post on my personal blog.  The post is titled "We Were Made for These Times" taken from her poem.

https://www.with-heart-and-hands.com/2018/06/we-were-made-for-these-times.html

Beautiful poem!!!