Sometime ago an elephant crossed my mind.

I’ve not suddenly become Republican—I was walking through my living room when I thought of Ganesha, the elephant god considered by Hindu’s to be the remover of obstacles.

(I’ve not become Hindu either.)

While in Sedona’s Andrea Smith Gallery celebrating Ganesha’s birthday with a golden iced cake, I saw and ate cake, but also bought a scarf with elephant eyes peering through a leafy thicket.

I was wearing that scarf when, in a crystal clear moment, Ganesha entered my mind accompanied by words, words that said:

“Of course, fear has to rise. All the obstacles to love have to rise if love is going to shine its brightest here on Earth.”

Suddenly everything made sense.

Fear and love have danced together throughout the ages. If you listen only to the headlines, fear seems to be taking the lead on America’s dance floor fueled by everything from last summer’s bedbugs, the recycled fear of socialism, immigrants and government shutdown, the ongoing fears of bad weather and aging as well as loosing jobs, erections and the right to carry guns. The fear of flu comes around each winter and it wasn’t that long ago that Homeland Security told us to buy duct tape and plastic to secure our windows.

Fear plays on the surface as many dance. The players of the instruments (drug companies, agribusiness, lobbyists, politicians and much of mainstream media) go about their business, some dancing to the bank, many of them unconsciously dancing in fear, too.

“Fear has to rise. All the obstacles to love have to rise if love is going to shine its brightest here on Earth.”

This was the perfect message as I try to hold the big picture of these tumultuous times and the accompanying tension in my heart and mind. This grace-filled message reminds me that fear is not the problem. Fear is the signal that things are shifting. The paradigm of domination and separation that has for centuries prevailed in the world is loosing its grip.

The rising of fear signals that love is rising, too. Love is rising in the dance not to conquer or win but to show up and shine, waking up in America and our world to a degree it has never shone prior.

Fear is signaling the potential for a new level of awareness in the dance. Fear signals that over time increased consciousness has laid the ground work for these times. All those who have bravely loved and died are part of the foundation on which the collective heart of the world now rises.

This message helps me see the times through a wide angle lens, to see all the many unfolding stories as part of a larger story as we are given the choice to shift from sleepwalking to awareness, from thinking we are separate to realizing our connectedness, from dominating Earth to appreciating and living in relationship to the environment and nature.

While pondering this dance, I suddenly knew: fear fears we will do to it what it has done throughout time. That we will demand it pay, make it suffer and cause it pain. That we will in turn try to conquer and control it. Fear does not trust that love doesn’t keep score, make demands or seek revenge. This level of love makes no demands.

Love holds space for fear to be loved too, while loving the frightened, especially those who don’t even know they’re afraid.

Then comes the rub, the obstacles to love have to rise in me too. A personal obstacle of my own is the ‘how’ of holding these times. I must release the desire to control how others dance and instead lovingly hold my own inner dance knowing it is connected to the world’s ball room.

This is part of the mystery of these times as we shift each in our own way from sleepwalking and reactivity to greater awareness.

As we wake up, love wakes up.

Let those of us who are heart specialists invite and embrace fear so it is held in the vibration of loving compassion and understanding.

Imagine fear, vulnerable fear, welcomed and held in the gentle arms of love, the Great Remover of Obstacles.

Previously published at Imagine the Shift.

Dawn Kirk, LCSW is a psychotherapist, writer and social artist living in Nashville, TN.  She prefers to describe herself as a listener, tender, lover and wonderer as she wanders the world.  Previously she co-hosted “Wake Up & Live,” a local radio show, and is presently working on “Waking Up with Dawn.” You can learn more about Dawn at Imagine the Shift – Home of the Good News Muse.

 

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Ed: Bryonie Wise
Assistant Ed: Wendy Keslick