A midsummer night’s dream
Imagine if you will, a gorgeous midsummer’s dusk. Along with others, you’re gathered outside in the wilderness, perhaps in a clearing at the edge of a woodland. A bright, lively stream flows through the land and you can smell the subtle fragrance of wildflowers in the air.
There’s a stage, beautifully decorated with evocative vignettes hinting at what’s to come for the evening’s performance. Comfortable chairs are laid out in rows, rugs and cushions are on the ground. Slowly, with peaceful anticipation, you and your companions begin to take your seats as the day’s light fades and the countless stars emerge above.
Your surroundings have infused you with a gentle openness and appreciation for the bounty you’ve had the pleasure of experiencing, and now, to top it all off, there’s to be a performance of dance, dialogue and music. It’s a story with many twists and turns, highs and lows, losses and victories. The performers are from a world renowned troupe of actors, dancers and musicians.
The small orchestra warms up, the spotlight falls on the stage and the show begins.
From the start, you’re completely drawn in. The performers have such seemingly effortless mastery over their craft that soon, there’s no separation between you and the unfolding of the narrative. And yet, there’s this strange and beautiful sense that you’re also in an embodied conversation with the story, that it’s listening and responding to you, you to it - a dance much like you’re witnessing on stage. You can hear the stream, and the hooting of an owl, someone gasping with fear or delight - all of it participating in this marvelous, mysterious performance.
Art by Em NiwaSuddenly, when the two dancers on stage are in the middle of an emotional parting and the music has reached a gorgeous crescendo of farewell, and you’re feeling the depth and beauty of it all, someone jumps on stage from the audience and shouts in objection: “No, no, no! This can’t be happening, it’s too awful and sad! Stop it at once!”
He’s gently ushered off by the stage hands, and the performance continues. But a while later, when a joyful scene of celebration and merriment is in full swing, he jumps back on and exclaims “Yes, yes, yes! This, this, I want more of this, don’t let this end!”
Again, he’s guided off the stage but for the rest of the performance, he can’t help but jump on stage to put a stop to anything “bad” and to demand more of the “good” things.
The performers and the audience tolerate him with kindness and good humour - understanding that his disruptions, although intrusive, are also part of the show.
As the curtain falls and the orchestra plays its final note, the man is telling everyone how he would have ended it differently, and why didn’t so-and-so say that to xyz instead, and oh, how offensive and rude that one was but what about the poor, angelic and put-upon one whom he tried so hard to rescue…
What an evening!
You say your goodbyes, and make your way back home.
Lying in bed you think of the man, so utterly entangled in the story, that he missed the experience of it completely. So utterly caught up in trying to control the narrative, that he couldn’t see how the interplay of energies dissolve + resolve, root down + rise up, fall apart + come together with an innate elegance and wisdom far beyond his controlling grasping and aversion.
And then, wise as you are, you recognize yourself in him. You see how when thoughts, emotions and sensations arise, you want to possess and control them, make them behave as you think they should. You realize how you become so utterly entangled in them that you become fully identified with them - and so miss the experience of allowing them to ultimately resolve and integrate through their own graceful intelligence.
You realize that you completely miss the wisdom that they have to share, if only you were able to hold the space within to witness.
And then you remember how you witnessed the performance. Far from being cold and indifferent, your witnessing presence was open-hearted, trusting in the friendly mystery unfolding in front of you; you remember how you stayed in your body and felt with all that was happening, without becoming identified with any of it, how you allowed laughter to erupt and tears to flow. You remember the compassion tinged with annoyance that you felt towards the interruptions of the audience member.
As you recognize yourself in the controlling interruptions, and in the loving witnessing presence that is your essence, there’s an understanding that this is the universal human condition.
And here, in this middle ground of understanding, I offer something to consider: perhaps we’re on our way towards becoming less identified with the part of us that grasps and pushes away, the part that wants to control from a place of fear and deficiency, and in turn becomes easy to control and exploit.
Perhaps we’re on our way towards becoming more rooted in the essence of who we are, as the non-bypassing witnessing presence that can make space and come into relationship with the myriad movements of life within and without.
Because - we can't come into resolving relationship with anything that we want to possess, control and dominate.
We have more access to being in relationship and co-creating with the vastness of our Self and of Life when we can stop identifying with the part of us that wants to dominate and control.
And the art of being in relationship with Life is the organic flow towards inner-decolonization, the organic flow towards becoming more rooted in the loving, dynamic presence of our Self.