The only belief collaborators must share to co-create is the belief in the sacredness of the other's experience.
Without this belief, it does not matter what other beliefs they share or whether their visions match, it does not matter if they feel loving or perceive themselves acting graciously—they are in a war.
The war may be more or less overt.
It could go on secretly for generations.
It could contain outright violence or seem eerily and fragilely calm.
The original violence is the denial of the sacredness of the other's experience.
All other violence rests on this, and actions of violence are inspired when we receive this denial from the other.
It is self-perpetuating, the most natural-feeling consequence in the world.
Deny me, and I will deny you.
It conquers every time and it always will.
We have to want it to be another way, so much that we will take every hit and keep including, and no, I do not only mean that faraway other with the very saddest story that gets your lil compassionate bleeding heart squirting.
I mean also the one in power making these calls knowing that these are atrocities, the Perpetrator, the betrayer of all that is holy.
Do you love your NEIGHBOR as yourself? The one playing a seemingly more relevant cog in this machine you are an undeniable part of?
Or can you only love a victim you imagine you haven’t harmed, puffed with righteousness and the fond feeling of oppression?
What does it mean to hold genuine love for all of the sides, for the oppressor and the victim? This is the unique pinch in which many of us find ourselves, if we are in true relationship with our power and privilege. This is the pinch we may be avoiding, if we don’t want to contend with our power and privilege.
What does it mean to be a channel tuned in on the frequency of love amidst chaos, violence, terrorism, genocide?
What does it mean to see in all directions without condemnation, to acknowledge, to witness, to be a container continually releasing, to grieve?
What does it mean to be without answers, without opinion, without a right to speak, with eyes and ears wide open, committed to receiving what is?
For me, it means I let it pour out of me. I witness and receive, re-seive, that is—I allow it to pass through my field and emerge refined, like flour.
I hold nothing but this frame, I do not hold what passes through, yet what I receive feels the sacredness of my embrace in that moment.
I send energy through my body and to the earth, I touch hands and cry tears that are not mine, without trying to own or understand them. I let the energy move. I do my part in the bucket brigade, bailing out this tension.
I don’t add water to the boat.