I’ve been in free fall since last Tuesday night. I even made a video and blog and tried to get them out Friday, but had technical difficulties. I will share with you what I wrote, yet now from a new point of view. I see that there was divine timing in all this, and that sharing now, after integrating a great deal more information and experience this past week, will make more sense to most of you. I realize that I may alienate others of you, but ask that you….we….all of us just listen to one another. If nothing else, let us take that lesson away from what has happened.

Here is what I wrote just 2 days ago:

It’s taken a couple of days for me to bring myself back to center and away from the shock and awe of these mythic times we live in where a trickster like Donald Trump can win the presidency. I have needed to integrate the medley of emotions, ranging from rage to sheer terror and disgust, to inconsolable grief that is reverberating with half the country. Even in this bubble of well-off Washingtonian liberals, I have begun to feel as if I don’t belong to my own country. We are experiencing collective grief.

I realize that the other half of the country had been feeling similar feelings for a long time. Empathy becomes a bridge here, if we allow it. We need bridges within ourselves between our own warring parts, and between one another. “This is painful and it will be for a long time. “ (Hillary Clinton) Listening to Hillary deliver her concession speech, I cried and cried, for Hillary and all she has given of herself, for women, myself, and all the times I have felt mis-understood or the scapegoat for the anger and helplessness of others.   There is no doubt in my mind that there has been a double standard that reflects the continued sexism rampant in the world, this country, and the relationships I work with every day. It’s still that way, and that is one of the many things that still needs healing.

For so many of us, this has been very personal, visceral, and if you have pushed it aside too quickly, and failed to learn something truly significant from this experience, take a moment and consider the opportunity we have. What we learn in an embodied way doesn’t need to come as a lesson over and over.  We can heal for real.

Please don’t dissociate. That is the Tricktser within yourself. Within hours, people started speaking of moving on, but if you have already, you have moved on too quickly, because it takes longer for human beings to integrate such experiences. You have not transcended, but dissociated from the pain. That will never solve anything. It’s clear that sweeping things under the rug did not resolve racism, sexism, and or the pain that so many have been feeling, who have placed their hope in Donald Trump.

I hear a lot of people saying “Everything happens for a reason,” which is one of those concepts of the mind that doesn’t mean a hill of beans. It implies that you must find the reason, that there is some pre-existing reason you must discover out there.

There is no reason out there! No, that reason is something you make within yourself as you deal with what life is offering you. I am here to remind you of that power within you—the one that everyone has free— that can create the gold out of the lead we have been given. That is the kind of personal alchemy we must engage in at this time. A truly great leader will not be elected until we claim our own sovereignty.

The Trickster, depicted as a coyote, in folklore and modern popular culture, is a clever, mischievous person or creature, who achieves his or her ends through the use of trickery. In Mythical Trickster Figures by Hynes and Doty, the trickster is said to have several of the following six traits:

1. fundamentally ambiguous and anomalous
2. deceiver and trick-player
3. shape-shifter
4. situation-inverter
5. messenger and imitator of the gods
6. sacred and lewd bricoleur

A check on all counts for our new president. But what allows an improvising coyote to rise to such power in a country where half the people feel sickened at the thought, and others who are in the same family or live in the same neighborhood, are happy as pigs in deep shit now? Donald Trump could never have been elected if a very large segment of the country wasn’t feeling so helpless. He stepped into that power vacuum as the perfect trickster who could morph into what the collective unconscious of the country needed it to be—a bully who will set things right by building walls and kicking out certain people out.

The Trickster appears to shake things up when a culture and political system has become stagnant and unresponsive to the real needs of the people. The trickster is a catalyst for change who refuses to be held accountable by the system he has come to tear down. Not all tricksters are lewd and bombastic, and xenophobic, but they all bring change. Jen Sincero says, “While taking great leaps forward, life often turns to shit before it turns to Shinola.” In other words, this chaos is necessary, and each of us has had our part in it.  It really is up to us what manifestation of the trickster we end up with, and the truth is, we get what we need for change.

You hear a lot of talk about darkness right now. That’s because we are in the realm of our contemporary cultural Shadow and it is dark and unconscious, thus the eruption of emotions and demonstrations that were there all along. The Shadow is what we disown, and we don’t really even know, and don’t want to know. It isn’t always negative, and often has to do with power. It is our personal responsibility to integrate our own shadow if we are to live dynamic and whole lives. As a culture, we must do the same, and we make up the culture.

Every one of the archetypes has what I call the anti-dote or restorative balm, as well as the powerful positive quality that is available once the restorative balm is applied. The restorative balm is always a form of self love. It is loving of ourselves now to keep our eyes open and not look away from the pain and suffering out there, pretending it does not belong to us. To look and allow yourself to feel means you are willing to take back the lost parts of yourself. I, for one, did not have full empathy for the so-called “deplorables” until now. I am sad for that word being used. We missed a lot, and it’s humbling.

Michael Moore, another trickster of our times, says:

Everyone must stop saying they are “stunned” and “shocked.” What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren’t paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair. YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew. Along came a TV star they liked whose plan was to destroy both parties and tell them all “You’re fired!” Trump’s victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him.”

When we refuse to see goes underground, becomes Shadow. If we are to learn from what has happened, we need to stop fighting and berating Trump and one another, because all attempts to stifle the shadow fuel its infinite power. Our cultural shadow is part of who we are, and now it is time for each of us to take our own position of leadership. The waves of young progressives have not yet learned that lashing out at the Shadow and trying to stifle its voice in an attempt to have their own voices heard, will shut down its own cause, as it attempts to shut down itself. We are all reflecting one another. It is so important to get this.

We are not helpless. Power is not political. Everyone has a power that could set things right, a power stronger that any wall or prison or law.   We have to remember this power in times like now when many people feel those helpless feelings, The truth is, that no matter what Donald Trump does, each of us has something that can never be taken away from us. I call it your loveseed, your essential kernel of goodness and vitality from which you source, and that is connected to the Source of all that is. It is time that we lead our own lives from this power within. That is personal leadership, a sovereignty that transcends all divides.

I know that pomp and circumstance and good grace in a civilized world asks for our present leaders to rise above—transcend differences—-to get behind the new president. Not a bad idea.   I am all for trying to bridge the great divide, and Obama is being so typically gracious. He is my leader.

But I would be lying and remain in the trance if I did not say that Donald Trump has done nothing to earn that position in my life. He is not my leader, and I feel the grief around not having that. I feel the grief that comes from not belonging where I long to feel at home.

I found these words by poet, David Whyte, yesterday, and felt a kind of relief, a comfort, for the first time since hearing the news:

“To feel as if you belong is one of the great triumphs of human existence — and especially to sustain a life of belonging and to invite others into that… But it’s interesting to think that … our sense of slight woundedness around not belonging is actually one of our core competencies; that we are the one part of creation that knows what it’s like to live in exile, and that the ability to turn your face towards home is one of the great human endeavors and the great human stories.

It’s interesting to think that no matter how far you are from yourself, no matter how exiled you feel from your contribution to the rest of the world or to society — that, as a human being, all you have to do is enumerate exactly the way you don’t feel at home in the world — to say exactly how you don’t belong — and the moment you’ve uttered the exact dimensionality of your exile, you’re already taking the path back to the way, back to the place you should be.

You’re already on your way home.”

I am all for moving on, but let’s really let ourselves feel the grief and speak with one another about the ways we don’t belong, so that we can really find our way to the world we dearly want—all of us together, no longer divided.

Yesterday, one of my heroes died—Leonard Cohen—another sort of trickster who exposed the shadow of several generations through his sensual, provocative, and ever so real music. His song, Hellelujah speaks rings true at this time:

There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah.

Let us heal our broken Hallelujah!

 

And here is where I am today:

I was struggling to embrace the broken Hallelujah. I knew I had my part.

I found myself judging those who didn’t vote, judging my daughter Katrina for “throwing a vote away” by voting for Jill Stein.   I noticed my judging, and how much had gotten stirred up in me. I didn’t like that. I had to face my own Shadow.

I didn’t like it one bit when Katrina called me “Establishment.” I who had burned my bra….I who have fought the uphill climb to be a woman with a purpose in a world where I was expected to stay at home and remain quiet. I with the big mouth who has always spoken up.

I—me—ego—being right—winning. I was caught. I realized that I was in the “shit” and not yet at “shinola.”

The truth hurts, and it sets us free.

My reactivity was a clue that old stuff was being triggered. Survival stuff from the reptilian brain that those of you who work with me know I am big on understanding. FIGHT, FLIGHT, PLAY DEAD, SUBMIT. I wrote a whole book on how to deal with this stuff, but it was happening again. Not just to me.

Countless numbers are fleeing out of the country. Many are fighting in protest. A whole lot more are playing dead and I know from the people I work with, that many feel defeated and are hopelessly submitting.

Like children in a dysfunctional family, we all were playing our roles. Donald Trump as Dad, or what relationship expert Terrence Real would call the blatant, or more overt offender, and Hillary as Mom, the latent, or more covert offender.  I for one was mesmerized and in the Trance and did not really see what was more hidden. Remember, we are dealing with our own Trickster archetype. I definitely felt duped and as if I had not been told the truth.

I kept my heart open and kept asking questions of myself. I called my friend Nina, a beautiful powerful woman my age, who has made it her business to know the hidden things.   She has positioned herself in a place of Sacred Neutrality, a balanced state that is free from fear or reactivity. I told her of my struggle, and she shared that she had not voted and why. I could feel my patriotic third chakra take a hit. Didn’t we have to vote? I was open however, and I trusted Nina. She sent me a whole lot to digest, and I have spent a while now taking it in. This information was from many sources, all non-mainstream, both right and left in viewpoint.

She had shared many things about the Illuminati with me before, and with all my focus on writing my book this past year—ironically, a book about being your own leader and walking a path of love—-I had not tuned in to the not mainstream media enough. I missed a whole lot, and with all the focus on personality during the election, I was hypnotized into thinking that Hillary was a better choice than someone I could not bring myself to vote for.

I admit that I voted for Hillary out of a strong desire not to have a man like Donald Trump as my leader. I was going against. In my heart of hearts, I was not with what she stood for either—not 100%–and I put on blinders. I was so thrilled to have a woman rise, that I was willing to silence my own voice of dissent.  And I know my role as messenger is to be a bridge between the seen and unseen worlds.

My friend Rene gave me the Forgiveness blend of essential oil yesterday, and I told her I needed it. I forgive myself for not being more informed and being swayed by my liberal bias.

I had a session with my coach shortly after speaking with Nina.  She invited me to investigate yet more information I had ignored.  I could feel my resistance.  The Universe was calling me to walk my talk of facing and integrating my Shadow. Ouch.

Award-winning journalist John Pilger says “Whether Trump will be any better is unclear. He says he is anti-establishment, but he will come with his own establishment. I don’t believe for a moment that he is against the establishment of the US in a wider sense – indeed he is a product of it,” said Pilger. “The truth is, there was no one to vote for.”

So where am in this moment? If you have read this far, you are still in the game. You are still trying to make sense out of how you feel. I am really open to seeing change happen, not always what I want, and yet, the will of many people.

Maybe as things unfold and the values of so many others are ignored or tossed to the side, we will find a way to build some bridges and if that is not possible, peaceful protest has power.  Those who voted for Hillary must find a way to keep our voices heard, and to take things into our own hands when it comes to making our communities safer and more welcoming to all.   No more waiting for Mom and Dad to do what only we can do. That is up to us.  It always was.  I am praying now as to where I put my energy.  I feel outraged about Big Pharma—among other things, being a mental health professional.  I see so much abuse of medication to keep people numb.

I will end this very long post with the words of Leonard Cohen from his song, You Have Loved Enough:

You kept me from believing
Until you let me know:

That I am not the one who loves –
It’s love that seizes me.
When hatred with his package comes,
You forbid delivery.

Today I am at peace. I have refused hatred, and I embrace the Light that seeks to come through me and you and everyone.

I really want to hear from you.

Love,