Through all of this change that is going on in my life and all the craziness that is going on in the world, I am left thinking a lot about the Hindu God, Shiva.
Shiva is the destroyer God.
For awhile, before I understood the concept, I always had trouble understanding why a God of destruction would be worshiped.
But what I am learning is that not only should we honor the difficult parts of life (in this context: destruction, loss, breaking down of systems), we also need destruction in order for creation to start anew. The other side of destruction is transformation.
Everything that has a beginning also has an end. But everything that has an end has the possibility to start again -- a new beginning. Destruction opens space for new creation. If there was no darkness, there would be no light, so in darkness there is always the hope for light to prevail.
There must be destruction, the breaking down, the falling away in order to create new.
In love, to grow in capacity, sometimes we need to have our hearts broken so we have the opportunity to bounce back and love more fully the next a time around. If one never knew heartbreak, love would be taken for granted.
In life, loss can be seen as the opening for change, for something new to form in its place. Sometimes we have to uproot our lives in order to find a new place where we belong.
A forest burnt is not barren forever.
The flip side of this concept is the need to encourage creation after destruction. We cannot sit around waiting for something to placate the pain. We cannot passively watch the passing of time in hopes that what we want will show up on our doorstep. We have to take action.
This reminds me of a quote from the play Rent: "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation." This has really stuck with me after seeing the play many years ago. We talk so much about peace, but peace is a passive state. Creation is an active replacement for war and destruction. So let's actively create the life we want for ourselves and for others.
To move gracefully through change and destruction it takes trust and love and the belief that something new can grow from the barren soil of destruction. We must learn from the loss and from the darkness, use it to move forward toward the creation of something new and powerful in its place.
We can manifest the new in our lives, till the soil of destruction in order for healthier life and experience to form.
This is my hope for our country, for our world, and all the people that live within it.