There is an American drama called Berlin Station that is about the CIA machinations in Europe. The opening song is a powerful riff that says “I’m afraid of Americans, I'm afraid of the world. I’m afraid I can’t help it, I’m afraid that I can”. Just opening the Guardian this morning and seeing the truly terrible news this song jumped into my mind. My felt sense at this moment is utter shock and horror, it feels as if the madmen have taken control of the madhouse and the rest of us are just about to pay for it. Just think, if you are a woman in America you will soon loose any right to make decisions about your own body. And we can kiss goodbye to any further effort to stop our world burning up around us. …. Or, that at least is what I am thinking as I write this.
In the teaching we follow we say that we should try not to get embroiled in the paranoid and catastrophising thoughts in our mind. That we should attempt to catch them as they arise and do something different. The something different is to rest into the felt sense and relax, and doing so see how our emotions rise up and then quieten when not fed by more thought. However, there is also something else which this morning I realise I seldom talk about and that is actually looking at the thoughts themselves. By this I mean recognising that my fears are fears of things that have not yet happened, that they are in fact fears of things that only presently exist in my own head. I’m not only scared of Americans and the world they are about to create, I am also - perhaps even more so - scared of myself.
The next line is “I’m afraid I can’t help it”. When I hear this I understand it as my fear is so big I can’t do anything to stop it. That I am powerless. That I am defeated. But of course this is not true. In this very moment there is a choice between how I take my next breath. Do I take it unconsciously as my mind runs between one thought to the next or do I just pause, come back to the moment and the immediacy of my senses and just settle. Not knowing what will come next but confident that in this calm, open space I am in the best space to deal with what ever does come. One breath at a time. I cannot breath a breath in the future.
And then the last, “I’m afraid that I can”. This line made me pause. Why would I be afraid that I can do something about my fear, that I’m not a victim to it? Surely that is something I should welcome? And then it occurred to me just how much responsibility being conscious and kind places on each of us who have decided to take this path. The madmen have taken over the madhouse and there is no longer any asylum so it is now up to us, each of us, to keep the small light burning. Not just for ourselves but everyone else as well, and as difficult as this is, also for the madmen.
May all beings know happiness and the causes of happiness,
May all beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering.
NW. 6 November 2024
With thanks to David Bowie who (I have only just realised) is the author of this song.
Honest and wise and a help to those of us still not beyond hope and fear. Knowing that others are also holding their lamps up helps me hold up mine. 'Shine on you crazy diamonds" 🤣
From Alex
Thank you Nigel. It is wonderful to feel synchronicity with others when the fear might send some of us into an isolated space. I did say, in my home, this morning that going forwards it is even more important to act with love and kindness. I will do my best to keep at least one small light burning x
Thank you Nigel
Thank you for expressing so much of what many of us feel. Fear of what may happen and how it got to be this way . So strange .
Tara Brach put this poem out today which felt that loving kindness is always ever present too.
“In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter, war spreading, families dying, the world in danger, I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.”
By
Wendell Berry