Exploring the past, the present and possibilities- with sojourns into the abyss thrown in for good measure!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

As The Teeter Totters


“Hold everything in balance. Without it, chaos and destruction prevail.”- Mercedes Lackey


I have a confession to make. I am a Libra. It’s not a secret but if you know me and you know the traits of a Libra, how it applies to me becomes almost comical. I am a very chatty diplomat who can see the many, many sides of almost any argument. I had to train myself to overcome my indecision the way some will train themselves to quit smoking or cease going to the bar every day after work. Let me tell you, that quote is so true. All of those points of life brought me nothing but chaos and frustration. This moved me in my quest for something absolutely Libran, balance.

Balance is a buzzword we hear so often. Self-help books and shows are riddled with it. We need to find it, obtain it and own it. They are all so quick to say this but none really say how. Find more time, money, people, etc. Easier said than done.

I love polarities and extremes but only if the opposing side is represented. See, I don’t live on the fulcrum, the midpoint where everything balances, the place where there is no motion, and therein lies the problem. If there is no motion there is no opportunity for growth and I’ve always been a learner, researcher, doer, adventurer, curiosity driven sort of person. So while I strive for balance, I live in extremes.

For example, in my day-to-day life I am an artist, of sorts. I thrive in the elements, a child of nature. I adore old homes with colored walls with lots of personalized decorations, and loathe living in a modern, white painted world.  I do a lot of things the “old fashioned” way because if it ain’t broke…  My husband is the absolute polar opposite. He is a tech-geek who would merrily spend his life eating frozen dinners, cloistered inside playing on his computers while never really personalizing his environment. I’m pagan (obviously) and he’s atheist. I’m a DIY-er, he’s a BUY-er.  Of course we have our similarities, that fulcrum, that midpoint where we mesh perfectly. Otherwise, he is my anchor, my grounding force and I lift him to new heights. We are perfectly balanced.

There was a time when I believed I needed to be with someone like me. It was this crazy relationship filled with lust and power but it was too much, too unbalanced. There was no middle ground, no polarity to keep us from overwhelming the other and it was destined to fail. That was my first, but not my last, lesson in balance.

In my post about Akasha and animism, I mentioned that I spent a lot of time working and training with varying Wiccan groups while attempting to run from my truth. In that time I worked with a Dianic group. This group, by far, was the most imbalanced group I had ever seen- all while believing they were in perfect step with nature. No men were allowed in the innermost circle. “God” was a word that would cause hair to stand on end and backs to bristle. I recall standing there and wondering how any of this was better than the Christian world that shunned women. Two sides of the same coin and I was left as poor as I was when I started, but even more discouraged.

Yet, from this experience, from watching my family turn from Spiritualism to Evangelistic Christianity I came to fully understand that one without the other is an empty hole, an incomplete whole. This is when I sat down and I really thought about it, and I delved into it.

We can not live without balance. I’ve seen entirely too many people claim to be a “white witch” to claim they are good even when they knowlingly do things that hurts others. I’ve heard some say that someone is doing “dark magic” when they simply mean something they don’t agree with. What I came to realize is that if we live only in a white world then we are just as blind as we are if we are left only to the depths of blackness. If we leave plants only in the light they burn up and die and if we only leave them in the dark, they will never come to life. We can not exist in the place of extremes without the other side. Think of all of the things we were told as children to never, ever do. It’s impossible to live that life. To be all “good”, all the time, unfailingly. What happens when truth and hurt cross lines? Do we commit the sin of lying to save hurt or do we crush someone to keep from lying?  Without winter slumber the success of summer can not occur. Without something dying, there is no living. Most importantly, while a woman may be the carrier of life, without a man our vessels remain empty and our bodies barren. We can not actually come into being without each other, so why should our faith be any different?

For me, the first steps were knowing myself and what is important to me. Using my marriage as my example, when I thought about it I realized that it wasn’t important to me if my husband is pagan, as long as he has respect for my beliefs- which he does. There are things that we are unbendable on, things we should compromise on and things that are really not very important at all. Knowing those things about myself made it much easier for me to find balance. Things that are not important to me or things I can compromise on can live on extreme ends. My husband deplores gardening, I love it. We compromised on it so that I tend the garden beds and he (or our son) do the mowing and the weed whacking. Opposite ends that work together. Another is that my family hates cooked spinach, I love it. I make it and they don’t eat it. It’s simply not important.

The things that are important to me are those things resting on the fulcrum.  My husband and I share very similar liberal views. We share a similar moral base upon which we raise our son. This is where we balance our extremes and where we meet in the middle (for a very simplified overview).

The next part for me in achieving balance came with something I discussed in the “A’s”. Acceptance. When I accepted that sometimes I will hurt people, even unintentionally, made amends and forgave myself- then I was able to find balance. I learned to accept that while I definitely find more comfort and “goodness” in darkness that the light has its purpose too so I can’t condemn the sun shining every day or else my garden suffers. When I embraced that there is truly no “good” and “bad”, that I/we are both. We are all of it rolled into one fleshy, meaty package. We simply can not live without causing disruption somewhere, we can not live without ever hurting something or someone- even just to eat to survive- this has helped me live a better, truer and more honest life. It allowed me to forgive myself of the harm I may have caused. I released guilt and was able to move on with my life. As I looked at the delicate balance in every natural being, I felt more part of that.

Once that came into light I also came to understand that life itself will not allow us to live on the fulcrum, on that perfect balancing point. There are days so filled with sadness that all we want to do is curl up and weep, yet other days are so filled with joy we are ready to burst. Cloudless, star filled nights can be followed by stormy, gray days. Nothing is static. The teeter board is always tottering. There are times when I can make it happen, when I can shift the balance and there are times when I must simply accept this is what I have been handed to make the most of. Still extremes but how I deal with them is where I find the balance point. I can allow life to be disrupted or I can glean what I can learn from it and move along. Balance in our lives is never actually perfect balance as much as it is a pendulum swinging, always back and forth. That sway is a good thing, whether subtle or rapid, motion is good because it’s when we’re sitting at the bottom or resting on the balance point, that’s when we go nowhere.

When I started to apply the same questions to my faith, things became more clear and in balance.
We’re taught that faith must be a group activity, from churches to mosques to covens we are told we need to seek out leadership, guidance and community. Did I really require that? Was it important? I found out that for me, it wasn’t. What was important was the balance of male/female, of the elements, of no one person/life being more important than the next.  I left the Dianic group to find something more in line with my beliefs, that for all the female power in the world, male must be present to balance it out. On bad days I know that good will come, which makes them easier to handle. I know that when I make a mistake it’s okay, and to learn, and minimize the damage to others.  This is how I’ve come to live what I believe is a balanced life.

As a Libra I have always felt the need for this perfect balance in everything, this illusion of perfect placement in life. Now that I understand we can not have one extreme without the other and that we can not grow while sitting in the middle I appreciate all sides even more now. I enjoy the sun, I learn from sadness and I still get to eat my spinach too.

Always with blessings and kindess.


6 comments:

  1. Awesome post :)) Enjoyed reading it. Had me giggling, then ya had me deep in thought, managed to evoke lots of emotions. You raise lots of wonderful points on balance. Really well done! :) Blessings

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    1. Thank you for reading and sharing, Jasmeine. It fills me with joy knowing it took you on a journey!
      Thank you!

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  2. Wonderful post on balance. It reminded me of the yin yang symbol - within the dark there is always light and within the light there is always dark, so they balance each other.
    Blessings
    Deep~Glade

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    1. I absolutely adore that you mentioned the Yin-Yang!! Not only because, yes! Exactly! But, if you don't mind, I'll share with you a little story about that.

      Years ago there was a magazine ad that had a Yin-Yang in it. One side was all art stuff, paint brushes, paint pots, etc. The other side was all 10010100010- computer language in black with white numbers. My then boyfriend, now husband, and I laughed so hard at it, bought two of the magazine we found it in and we ripped out the ads and saved them. That was over 10 years ago. We still have them and they still make us laugh. :)

      Thank you so much for reading and sharing!

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  3. The way you described yourself and your husband reminded me so much of my own marriage! Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Then you must be incredibly in love and how a blessed marriage, as that's how I feel! :)

      Thank you for sharing and reading...and so many blessings on your marriage!

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