Lexie Carroll > Recent Status Updates

“Inspiration and wretchedness are inseparable. We always want to get rid of misery rather than see how it works together with joy. The point isn’t to cultivate one thing as opposed to another, but to relate properly to where we are. Inspiration and wretchedness complement each other… both can be celebrated. We can be big and small at the same time.”

Impermanence is the essence of everything: children growing up, seasons changing, day turning to night to day. We have no respect for impermanence, we despair of it, resist it. Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life, forgetting we are a part of the natural scheme of things. When we accept it, we are in harmony with reality of life.

The middle way is our birthright: an open state of mind that can relax with paradox & ambiguity. The middle way is wide open, but it’s tough going- it goes against the grain of an ancient neurotic pattern that we all share. We feel lonely, hopeless, etc; we want to move to the right or the left. We don’t want to sit and feel what we feel, but the middle way asks us to awaken the bravery that exists in all of us.

Letting things go is often called nonattchment, but it’s not as cool/remote as it sounds; it actually has more kindness & intimacy than that. It’s actually a desire to genuinely know, like a curious child does. We want to know our pain so we can stop endlessly running. We want to know our pleasure so we can stop endlessly grasping. Over time our questions get bigger and our inquisitiveness more vast.

We are raised in a culture that fears death and hides it from us. Nevertheless, we experience it all the time. We experience it in the form of disappointment, of things not working out, of things always being in a process of change, when the day ends, when the second ends, when we breathe out, that’s death in everyday life. Having a relationship with death in everyday life means relaxing with insecurity over time.

The Logic of Hopelessness (the renunciation that’s essential for the spiritual path): seeking for some lasting security is futile. We have to get totally fed up with the futility of seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, thinking we can find a way to hide and to always tie up loose ends. Getting addicted to hope can look like hoping that doubt and mystery will go away.

Refraining is the step next to mindfulness on the path. It is about giving up entertainment mentality: not acting out impulsively the moment we feel restless or the slightest edge of boredom coming on, not immediately filling up the space just because there’s a gap. Through refraining we face and get to know restlessness and fear that are soft, tender experiences underneath the uptight & reactive behaviors.

Learning not to cause harm to ourselves or others is a basic Buddhist teaching on the healing power of nonaggression. The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.

What makes Maitri a different approach is that we are not trying to solve a problem. We are not trying to make pain go away or become a better person. In fact, we are giving up control altogether and letting concepts/ideas fall apart. This starts with realizing that whatever occurs is neither the beginning nor end. Thoughts, moods, emotions & memories come & go like they always do, and basic nowness is always here.

Sometimes people use meditation to try & avoid bad feelings & disturbing thoughts. We might use labeling as a way to get rid of what bothers us, and stay with something blissful or inspiring. Remember that meditation is about opening & relaxing with whatever arises, w/o picking & choosing. Not to repress, and also not to grasp onto anything. It’s not about getting rid of thoughts, but rather detaching from them.

Labeling our thinking in mediation is the point where we can consciously train in developing nonjudgmental attitude. This idea in Sanskrit is ‘Maitri’: loving-kindness or unconditional friendliness. Each time we say “Thinking” We cultivate Maitri to what arises in the mind. Since this kind of unconditional compassion is difficult to come by, this simple/direct method for awakening it is exceedingly precious.

Meditation can help us to stay in the middle between indulging and repressing/rejecting. We do this by acknowledging whatever arises without judgment, letting the thought simply dissolve, and then going back to the openness of this very moment. Rather than squelch or obsess with the thoughts, we acknowledge them and let them go. This very moment is the perfect teacher, showing us what we need to face.

Generally, we regard all forms of discomfort as bad news: disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, fear, etc. But instead of being bad news these are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. These moments are messengers that show us exactly where we’re stuck.

“Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. … To stay with that shakiness- to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge [, sticking with that uncertainty, learning not to panic]- that is the path of true awakening.”

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. … The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

In childhood we often have to disown pets of ourselves to try and maintain closeness with our parents. In adulthood we’re often unconsciously attracted to partners that are good at the trait that we’ve disowned. Over time however that charm can wear off & we get frustrated at them for being so clingy or distant. We don’t get that we have hired our partner to manifest what we are not willing to own in ourselves.

Healthy intimate relationships require ongoing dance & balance between separateness & connectedness. But our culture often gives & reinforces perceptions of ideal relationships as always happy, connected, together, even enmeshed. Many couples come to therapy asking for help in being more connected. But they may not see that the problem is actually overemphasis on togetherness & lack of attention to individuality.

Neurosis is an attempt to escape the intensity of our emotions & body sensations. Neurosis is fundamentally dissociative, because we have to get away from being with our body sensations. Therefore, the antidote to neuroses is to practice re-embodiment, over and over again. Thus we learn that we actually can tolerate our body sensations, and we increase our confidence and capability.

Emotions, at a deeper level, actually begin with body sensations, which we then interpret. Our interpretation of pounding heart & tight stomach will differ if we are meeting a lover vs. going to the doctor. If we can focus on just body sensations and suspend interpretation, we realize the sensations (even of eg shame) don’t/can’t kill us. This allows us to be IN the present moment, not dissociated in neuroticism.

The time of the heroic quest is over, with its all conquering, dragon-slaying hero saving the world one sword-stroke at a time. The world needs restoration, and each one of us is challenged to do the work of collective healing. It’s time to find new threads, to strengthen the frayed edges of our wild being & weave ourselves back into the fabric of our culture. Women can remake the wasteland, we can heal the world.

What do we do when we live and are settled in lands not of our ancestors, but we want to connect to our roots and the land? We can take up the threads of our old ancestral stories and weave new tales with the old themes. “I am here, this is my home. (Even with colonial baggage included). I have a duty and a longing to know it, and belong to it. The stories of my people, my ancestors, can help me do that.”

Long ago the Celtic people knew what other indigenous people around the world knew- that our fate is inseparable from the fate of the land we live on, and from the fate of the wider earth herself. Celtic women knew that ‘we are the land and the land is us’, they knew that they speak with the moral authority of the land and the underworld.
[We MUST connect with the land, for that is our Mother, (part of) our God]

The Celts viewed time, & so life, as cyclical rather than linear. This cyclicity is an entirely different worldview with big implications. In a linear worldview, growth and progress are the point, and impermanence is feared (seen as regression of progress); Death being the ultimate and most feared impermanence. The Celts saw death as inextricably linked to life; trying to avoid death was unthinkable & undeisreable.

It’s easy to dismiss the city as wasteland, but wildflowers grow there as well. Love the place you are in, it doesn’t matter what the place is. Even the broken places need to be cherished. Look for the little sprouts and flowers pushing up through the cracks in the concrete.

These stories contain joy, & grief. “We women were built to carry these stories, it was always our role to carry them, and it must be so again, now that the world calls out in its agonies for us to rise up & speak the truth. Now that the earth calls out for us to again speak with its voice. The stories are everywhere still; listen, & you will find them. They are the tentative flowering of a violet in spring..”

What do Women Want Most in all the World? The medieval tale of Gowan (King Arthur’s friend) and Lady Regnell, among many others, answers this as SOVEREIGNTY. Control over their own lives, the power to make their own decisions. To take up their ancient role of moral and spiritual authority of the land. When this is balanced with the good masculine, the Land and people thrive. Sir Gowen displays the good masculine.

We want to bring the masculine and feminine energies into balance. Feminine (yin): instinctive, feeling, relational, heart, creativity, Masculine (yang): active, rational, goal-oriented, structured, brain, conscious, content, form, direction. We all need to harmonize these principles within ourselves (the sacred marriage), and we cannot create a balanced world without men.

The “Holy Grail” mythology existed far before its association with Christ. In early tellings there was both a grail and a spear, which spear had wounded the Fisher King. The spear represents the masculine element, the grail the feminine. What ails us is the dominance of the dry, wounded, merciless overextended masculine (bloody spear). The quest for the grail is to restore the lost feminine to the world.

Finding old Divine feminine archetypes: Great Celtic mother goddesses. Woman, the personification of the land. Woman, the life-giving creative power of the Earth. “I had finally found my place in the world. Long before God the Father, there she was, God the Mother. How did she vanish? I wasn’t looking to replace a male God with a female God, I was simply looking for evidence that women might have worth.”

Life isn’t “out there” in the next dopamine hit, the next task, the next experience, it’s right here, now.
The demons in the Screwtape Letters observe that God wants us to attend to Eternity, and the Present, because we live “in time” and the Present is the point at which time touches Eternity.
“Accepting hardships the pathway to Peace, taking this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.”