white tulips

Instead of daisies, this week we have white tulips, signifying purity and innocence, yes, but in greater relevance to my personal framework, forgiveness and also, new beginnings. On the drive downtown with my father and dog tonight, bookending our ride uptown on Friday, I did much forgiving from the quiet within, particularly a forgiving of my soul…for situations my soul asked to put me in, to learn something and that did not cause it suffering—for the soul feels no pain—but which abraded my ego or personality matrix, perhaps necessarily, but even so, its consequences warrant forgiving i.e. acknowledgment. My teacher says that spiritually "up-leveling" (*) or internal growth can seem easy until you reach a point where you are asked to forgive…that is where it gets real dicey. She spoke today about forgiveness as for-giving: meaning that we give back the energy of those who have "wronged us" for them…because we recognize their innate divinity and respect them too much not to return what is theirs, not to discern their dharma from our own…if we are skillful, we may do so directly but better yet, we pour this energy into the earth, which is asking to absorb it, towards healing (theirs and ours). When we give back to the earth the challenges of human existence, that is how the earth learns to create medicine for us and for those challenges…medicine that takes shape via plants and animals; flora, fauna, and criaturas in between. 

Such is the cyclical nature of forgiveness and blessing-recompense. Here we can recall a quote from Simone Weil's Gravity and Grace (1947) that I believe had been circulating widely a few months ago: It is impossible to forgive whoever has done us harm if that harm has lowered us. We have to think that it has not lowered us, but has revealed our true level. Does Weil mean that these situations of revelation do not warrant forgiveness, hence its impossibility? If so, then what she appears to be saying is that we cannot forgive when there is nowhere to give the energy back, having received it for and of ourselves. But might it not also be the case that the "true level" (*) that has been discovered through harm done unto us might also be our capacity for forgiveness—showing us that we are well capable of recognizing boundaries, detaching cords, purging what is not ours, at core. In this we may heed Marianne Williamson's famous (hilariously sincere?) words: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. The tulips are white, clean, but not absorbent, they are saturated enough as is, and though I bought them with buds closed earlier this morning—on my table they now bloom as large as light itself.