Haiti

Haitian goddess of Beauty & Love, Erzuli's veve (symbol).

There has been much speculation as to why the earthquake in Haiti happened. Beyond the geological reasons, tectonic plates and whatnot, people want to ascribe an esoteric reason based on religious logic. There are idiots saying it is God's punishment, atheists who argue that if there were a God, why would He let this happen? As if human logic can explain something like this. As if that would make the hurt go away.

When I first went to study with Dave Dobson, he said, "Give up the need to know why." We've been conditioned by psychology, to believe that if only we knew why a thing happened, we would be able to heal or move on. Dave said, why keeps you stuck in content. Knowing why doesn't heal it. You may even have all the reasons why you do what you do. It doesn't stop you from doing it. If you are waiting to know all the reasons for something, you will stay waiting. Would you rather know why, or would you rather heal? So much of our misery is the need to know why something happened.

Add to this the expectation, reinforced by Newagers, that only good things should happen to us. Therefore, bad things happen because we attract them and it's our fault. As if. All we have to do is affirmations, meditate, be vegetarian--whatever, and our lives will be perfect. Caroline Myss points out that the church teaches us that if we pray enough and we're good enough, that we have the expectation that bad things won't happen and if they do, somehow God is punishing us.

I do believe that what we resonate with, we attract. But it's not a conscious resonance. There is more at play--our soul, our patterns, our life contract.

I was recently whining to John Morgan about a part of my job that I dislike. After I ranted, he quietly said, "But isn't that a part of the job? To separate it out as not a part of the whole package is to annoy yourself." To separate heartache and illness and death from life means that you are denying 50% of life. It is all a part of the package. I'm reminded of Caroline Myss saying, "People say, I never thought this would happen to me. Well, who did you think it would happen to?!"

This is what we signed up for, but somehow we think it shouldn't be the way it is. As John likes to say, "I wish it was the way it isn't." We prolong our misery when we fight against reality. It is what it is. Now what?

Back to Haiti: Before the earthquake, how much did you even think about Haiti? How much did you care that their biggest import is used clothing from the Goodwill? Did you see their living conditions before the earthquake? Right. Out of every disaster--natural or otherwise, we get to be reminded that the most important things in life are not things. We are all on this planet together and we're not getting out alive. My prayer for Haiti is that with new resources going to rescue, resuscitate and rebuild, that they will come thru this with a renewed strength & hope for a better future.

P.S. I'm linking to the Cakewrecks Doctor's Without Borders page, for donations.