Scarecrow
The dictionary on my phone defines arrogance, a noun, as an overbearing pride evinced by a superior manner toward inferiors. Its synonyms are: haughtiness, hauteur, highhandedness, lordiness. Its adjective ‘arrogant’ is defined as having or showing feelings of unwarranted importance out of overbearing pride. Synonyms: chesty, self-important.
Some time ago I mused about arrogance being a discontent with circumstances differing from what I wanted. My ego dismissed this outright! Recently I grew impatient with the pace in which my mentor was assisting me and told him so. He gently suggested that arrogance may be one’s impatience with the circumstances and timing of the Mystery in our lives. My ego was humbled.
Immediately I saw the relevance and rightness of this perspective: I relived moments when the only workable thing to do was respond to what is by consenting to it; by acknowledging my current reality; by saying yes, this thing is occurring here and now whether I like it or not: These circumstances are in my life in this moment. I instead often did the non-workable thing and resisted the moment.
I have lived so arrogantly thinking the world should be as I desired it. I have begun the discipline of letting go of my impatience. Given that the majority of my resistance is outside my awareness, I endeavor to remember to consciously consent to what is and to live in a state that enables my remembering. What helps is slowing down the pace of my daily routines, staying centered and grounded in my body, inhabiting it more completely, more often. This too requires remembering as taking refuge in my brain and places beyond, have been all to well practiced.
Letting go of arrogance is a crucial step in rousing the genuine nature of my own nature – this is the Being and expression that has been waiting patiently in the background of my life while the one masquerading as myself impatiently lives out the histrionics of my culture. A foreground background shift is well underway in me. This change is exacting a fierce levy of grief: Facing this incongruity of having lived a cultural, familial and ego’s intent bent on distancing myself from my genuine nature is harrowing.
Freedom from grief involves an inescapable process that is at odds with Western culture’s “Be a Man Training” – the course of study in which I excelled. Its first tenet: Crying is prohibited. Nonetheless as I betray my training and give myself over to a good cry, the griefs of my ancestors, family, and my own, return to the beauty of the earth, to life. As consequence my genuine nature comes more into fore. I have had milliseconds of knowing the unbearable lightness of being. What a boon!
As I negotiate this labyrinth I wonder whether there might be an echo of my process in others: I am curious about such things.
Although, or rather, because of being surrounded by the strong spirits of the gorgeous mountains of France’s Grand Massif region, I have been experiencing and releasing an unprecedented amount of grief in the last ten days. I am grateful for this undoing, its moments of seeming brutality notwithstanding.
The dictionary on my phone defines arrogance, a noun, as an overbearing pride evinced by a superior manner toward inferiors. Its synonyms are: haughtiness, hauteur, highhandedness, lordiness. Its adjective ‘arrogant’ is defined as having or showing feelings of unwarranted importance out of overbearing pride. Synonyms: chesty, self-important.
Some time ago I mused about arrogance being a discontent with circumstances differing from what I wanted. My ego dismissed this outright! Recently I grew impatient with the pace in which my mentor was assisting me and told him so. He gently suggested that arrogance may be one’s impatience with the circumstances and timing of the Mystery in our lives. My ego was humbled.
Immediately I saw the relevance and rightness of this perspective: I relived moments when the only workable thing to do was respond to what is by consenting to it; by acknowledging my current reality; by saying yes, this thing is occurring here and now whether I like it or not: These circumstances are in my life in this moment. I instead often did the non-workable thing and resisted the moment.
I have lived so arrogantly thinking the world should be as I desired it. I have begun the discipline of letting go of my impatience. Given that the majority of my resistance is outside my awareness, I endeavor to remember to consciously consent to what is and to live in a state that enables my remembering. What helps is slowing down the pace of my daily routines, staying centered and grounded in my body, inhabiting it more completely, more often. This too requires remembering as taking refuge in my brain and places beyond, have been all to well practiced.
Letting go of arrogance is a crucial step in rousing the genuine nature of my own nature – this is the Being and expression that has been waiting patiently in the background of my life while the one masquerading as myself impatiently lives out the histrionics of my culture. A foreground background shift is well underway in me. This change is exacting a fierce levy of grief: Facing this incongruity of having lived a cultural, familial and ego’s intent bent on distancing myself from my genuine nature is harrowing.
Freedom from grief involves an inescapable process that is at odds with Western culture’s “Be a Man Training” – the course of study in which I excelled. Its first tenet: Crying is prohibited. Nonetheless as I betray my training and give myself over to a good cry, the griefs of my ancestors, family, and my own, return to the beauty of the earth, to life. As consequence my genuine nature comes more into fore. I have had milliseconds of knowing the unbearable lightness of being. What a boon!
As I negotiate this labyrinth I wonder whether there might be an echo of my process in others: I am curious about such things.