Yes, that’s a black hornet nest on my head. (Fortunately, the prior residents had vacated by the time I put it on.) I do like having fun. Well, it was hard to resist: when I happened upon the impressive piece of construction one day in the woods, once I’d ascertained its unoccupied status, I couldn’t help but notice it was just the right size for my head. So I put it on and walked home.
But this (are you surprised?) is not about black hornets.
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Over the many years since I woke up, I’ve had to relearn plenty of lessons. Each time the same one would revisit, it would seem to hit me harder over the head than the time prior. Trying to get my attention, the way life in its unceasing kindness means to do. I wrote of this a bit in Love Incarnate. Bit by bit, I got to where the first time a message came swimming into my heart — for that was its landing place, not (as in days of pre-waking lore) my mostly-useless mind — I let it altogether in, bowed my head, and assented. Okay, message received, I said (sometimes out loud).
All of this was in marked contrast to how it had been my whole life prior, in which there was lesson after lesson after lesson. But my pride, my fear, my reluctance to look a radical truth in the face — all of these forces “made” me avert my eyes from what would have benefited me mightily to PAY ATTENTION to on the first go-’round (or at least the tenth). My failure to learn led to a major breakdown and endless terrible mistakes in judgment.
Does any of this ring a bell, my love?
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Many stinging insects are not gifted the way black hornets are: that is, the later are entirely capable of coming in for a given attack multiple times. (Some stinging insects die after the initial venom-insertion.) Also, the hornet’s venom is impressively painful — as I was to learn one day some years ago. I had inadvertently encroached upon a particular one’s territory. It “warned” me once (inserting its hellbent stinger into my forearm), then backed up and came in for round two. Message received. I had to elevate that arm for a couple of days, keeping an ice pack on it pretty constantly, because every time I let my hand drop to the side, the increased blood flow to the wounded forearm cranked up the pain to considerable.
Which is rather the way we humans sometimes need to learn the same lesson on more than one occasion. Or haven’t you noticed?
The more self-aware you are, the more quickly you will learn — thereby being spared of yet another (this time more painful) attack. What typically happens, before awakening has occurred, is that when life delivers a message that might be perceived as threatening, we avoid taking in the truth it means to deliver. Because we don’t enjoy pain! Here is where the mischief-making, emotion-saturated life (and its companion “hornet,” the mind) comes in handy. It registers DANGER-DANGER-DANGER when an uncomfortable truth is hovering around the vicinity. Leading to one of the most terrible things the “excellent” mind is capable of: avoidance.
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In my case, that had most memorably to do with the time I was looking away from the truth that the relationship I was headed into would be a colossal error. I was given three chances to get it. I’ll spare you the details, except to say that with each subsequent “hit-her-in-the-head-with-it” message, I was aware I was looking away from some uncomfortable truth — something that appeared to threaten what I then saw as my well-being.
Is it any wonder my devastating breakdown followed not long after? But it would take me years (decades, in fact) to understand what had gone on here.
So what’s the moral of the story, dear friend? It’s this: have the guts to know when you’re looking away. Here’s where taking your dear self seriously is an actual blessing. Slow down in a quiet moment and see if some kind of fear is running the show. Don’t think about it. Feel! Allow yourself to get vulnerable. Oh yes, it’s “risky” like crazy to be real with yourself. Darwin understood well that like all animals, we flee from perceived risk.
But there are cases in which our “excellent” human minds do us in, talking us into running full-tilt from whipping around to face a truth that would not kill us but might, in fact, save us. In the biggest of all possible ways.
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I can’t tell you how many people have shared with me that the idea of awakening actually frightens them. I get it. You never know how radically it’s going to change things — not just you at the essence, but your relationships with others, maybe. If you notice yourself feeling a tad scared, just notice it. It’s normal. Anyhow, the you that’s a little worried isn’t the you you’ll be in the aftermath. See if you can laugh a little, okay?
Be brave. Do the gutsy thing. No matter how scary. Beats the hell out of yet another jab from the black hornet.
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Many thanks for your kind donations, those who are able to manage one, whatever the size. I am deeply grateful.
Please be kind to all you encounter, “strangers” included. Above all, be that way with your dear self. There just isn’t time for it to be otherwise.