After writing last week’s blog on BEING LOVE, I have been struggling with how far short of that ideal I fall. To tell the truth, I have been overwhelmed with anger and grief at the events of the past two weeks. When I wrote last week’s blog, I was trying to bring some love into the situation and diffuse those difficult feelings in my own mind and body.

However, maybe I am short-circuiting a very important part of the process. In my rush to BE LOVE, I am ignoring or pushing away the righteous anger that I am feeling. I am ignoring the anger, which is still there, and trying to go straight to love. The more I reflect on this, the more I realize that this may be a form of spiritual by-passing. In going straight to love, not only am I denying a legitimate emotion, I am allowing that emotion to settle into my body and fester, like an untended wound.

I read a passage this week from Thich Nhat Hanh in which he talked about mindfulness and anger.

He said, “We do not produce mindfulness to chase away or fight our anger, but to take good care of it. This method is non-dualistic and non-violent. It is non-dualistic because it recognizes that mindfulness and anger are both part of ourselves. One energy embraces the other. Don’t be angry at your anger. Don’t try to chase it away or suppress it. Acknowledge that it has arisen and take care of it…. Look deeply at your anger as you would at your own child. Do not reject it or hate it.”

When I read that passage I began to think about how to embrace my anger in order to transform or transfigure it. I began to picture making love to my anger. In my mind, I pictured the Kundalini embrace of the Sacred Masculine and Feminine as they dance the dance of wholeness. I saw how the power of righteous anger can be the impetus to change and growth.

Anger in itself isn’t bad. It is an emotion like any other. However, women in our culture are not allowed to be angry. An angry woman is called a bitch, told she is hormonal, or otherwise denigrated. But angry women get things done. They don’t bypass their anger. They use its power to make change.

Being angry isn’t antithetical to BEING LOVE. In fact, many times our anger comes because we love. Any parent knows that it is because we love our children so deeply that we can become so angry with them.

In meditation this morning I decided to be more mindful of my anger by inviting her to talk to me. In my mind’s eye I saw her standing naked in front of me. She was glowing with red heat, defiant and strong. As I walked around her, I noticed that her other side was gray. She was sobbing, and her grief was inconsolable. Both the anger and the grief were two sides of the same raw feelings. I am angry and grief-stricken by the tremendous loss, death, and destruction in our country and in our world. I am angry and grief-stricken by seeing bastions of democracy tumble, by seeing that the things that I have taken for granted are indeed more fragile than I knew. I am angry and grief-stricken by my own seeming helplessness to effect change.  

Somehow I found myself between the two. I heard both the anger and the grief, and I embraced them both and held them gently. Then I found that I was holding a diamond, the most valuable of gems. A diamond is a symbol of union. It is clear, strong, and beautiful. In my spiritual imagination, the union of myself with my anger and my grief transfigured them both into a jewel of great value.

Today, in inviting myself to mindfully embrace my anger, to ask it why it is here, to listen to it, and to hold it gently I have transformed the raw emotion into something entirely different. I have literally and figuratively transfigured those emotions into a rare jewel. While I don’t yet know where this revelation will lead, I think at the least, it will point me to a power within myself that I didn’t know I had. This in turn may lead me to use this power to act in a different way or to try to change things. It may ask me to shine my light on injustice or to be more empathetic. It may open me up to different opportunities to BE LOVE.

Today I learned that when I am mindful of and receptive to my anger, I am able to transform and transfigure it into something entirely new. It no longer festers inside me, but rather becomes totally new. It becomes the spark and the impetus for growth and change. It helps me to claim my inner power and BE LOVE.

Barbara Garland
January, 2021