Compassion
At 4:27am on November 13th the Moon was New. It’s been over half a cycle now – but that’s okay. It’s been a busy autumn – particularly the past six weeks – but there have also been beacons shining amidst the craziness.
During the last cycle I was focused on the concept of Consideration. In the closing paragraph of that post I said that “I want to try to do my best to be mindful of those around me – those who may have an expressed need as well as those who might be simply “doing their best to get by” – and ask myself how I can best Consider others in what I say and what I do.”
This focus on Consideration was borne out of a feeling that I wasn’t receiving any. This was not actually true – but perception often belies reality. Once I had committed to offer the Consideration I felt I was lacking, my outlook morphed and I realized than in some ways I was guilty of the very thing I was feeling subjected to.
It’s important to note here that I have a very specific view of forgiveness. It’s not absolution of the person who I may perceive wronged me, but rather it is an intentional path to be able to give to that person again. For Giving. My reframing an event releases me from the energy it takes to stay angry or upset, and grants me the ability to view the other person with more of a sense of grace.
There were two individuals who were foremost in my mind during this time. One was a professional associate, the other was someone who I had never actually met in person. My thoughts around both of them were consuming me, and it was so unhealthy and personally destructive that I became unable to rationally separate the legends from the truth.
Realizing this took me back to the early days of my spiritual path. About ten years ago I was studying the Major Arcana of the Tarot and I was researching “The Emperor”. This path of study led me to the Greek pantheon and Zeus. I have always despised bullies and began a visceral dislike of Zeus. Before a weekend away I was absently straightening the apartment and a sentence appeared in my head: “you know the legends, but do you know the truth?” This made me stop in my tracks – I did know the legends of Zeus – but histories rarely tell the whole story, and this is exponentially true of myths. My heart and attitude began to soften. Later that afternoon, another fully formed thought appeared “you know what I was dealing with, could I have been anything else?”
This was the germination of an aspiration to be more Compassionate in my life. I don’t always succeed in that – in fact, I have failed more than I have succeeded in recent years – but the aspiration is there, the intention is there. As with many things, sometimes I struggle with the implementation.
It was in remembering these phrases that I attribute to Zeus that I was able to find peace and “forgiveness” for the people I felt at odds with. It caused me to realize that we can ever truly know what it’s like to walk anyone else’s path. Just like communicating with others is dependent on understanding their “interface”, so too is it important to know that our preconceptions of what “life” is may have no bearing at all on someone else’s experience.
So this month’s focus is, and has been, Compassion. Finding it in ourselves to let go of our own stuff long enough to realize that other people have their stuff too. We all want to be seen, and sometimes the high road is steep – but the exercise is ultimately good for us. If we’re not being seen, who are we not seeing?
Wrapped in this too is Compassion for ourselves. We are not perfect. We are not even the people that we aspire to be. We are all works in progress. It’s important to realize that the perception of us that matters the most is our own. We should strive to be who we want to be, not who other people have come to expect, and acknowledge that we are as deserving of Compassion as those we would seek to be Compassionate toward. We can’t always call for Compassion, but we can do our best to have it for ourselves.
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