The Realities of Oneness

Have been going through a lot of emotional purging, a steady flow of sadness...but in many ways it's been grief without necessarily an object. Yeah, I have caught threads of general themes...ala opportunities lost, years wasted, etc....but it's all been part of simultaneously feeling immense gratitude for where I am now and excitement at the choices I have.

Today is different. For several days, I have noticed a headline online about a FL family where the mom chose to go completely blind in order to continue healthcare for her two daughters...all of whom share a rare genetic disorder. I've been staying fairly focused the last few days...not letting myself be distracted by my usual interests...but for some reason I especially was not going to read that story.

Today curiosity won out...reading about how they've had "good" regular health insurance for years yet have lost so much: their house, and their peace and tranquility, to the burdens of mounting debt from medical co-pays. At some point I just start sobbing...one of the young girls telling her blind mother that it's going to be okay and rubbing her back. It is so not OK...to live in the most fabulously wealthy country of all time....bestowed with the most abundant set of natural resources on our entire beloved planet...and to know that this would not happen to any family in the rest of the industrialized world. It is so not OK to be reminded, once again, what a barbaric country the United States is in many respects...to realize, once again,what a travesty the adminstrations since 1980 have made of the profound, sacred vision that the founders of this country brought into form through the literal sacrifice of their blood.

All right, time for a walk...give the energy somewhere to move. Half a block from my house, I encounter a somewhat surreal scene playing out across the street. Another family with two young daughters is trying to gracefully conclude a conversation with a guy on the sidewalk and get in their car but he seems to not be registering any of it and is asking them in a loud, passionate voice if they remember an old comic book character that he's referencing.

Taking it in, I feel the immense loneliness that exists all around us...how many people don't feel seen or heard in their lives...and when there's an opening, all that hasn't been expressed starts pouring out in ways that trample social clues. As I write this am remembering how impacted I was by the synopsis of the book Bowling Alone when it first came out...describing the epidemic of people in this country who are cut off from others, who live terribly isolated existences. As I continue my walk, more tangible grief at the state of humanity surfaces...for the tragedy of our pervasive, multi-faceted, personal/collective disconnections...a disconnection syndrome.

What an utter, unrelenting blessing to be part of community.

Then, coming back with the intention of writing this post...the previous story is still on my screen and I notice a link to an article by Christiane Northrup MD that I've been wanting to read on an apparent move away from C-sections back to more vaginal births...wonderful news, indeed. But I haven't been really keeping up with the data, which is not surprising since it doesn't get much attention, does it? But "maternal deaths" have doubled in the United States in the past 25 years!

That is, new mothers dying because of childbirth. Doubled. Dead. Twice as many.

Is there something wrong here? Wrong in the reality itself? Wrong in the fact that something so fundamentally feminine...so truly human...gets so little notice?

Not only that but the United States ranks below 40 other countries in the world in terms of our maternal deaths...and, not only that, but we use skewed measurements of maternal deaths to make our healthcare system look better than it is when other countries don't...and, not only that, but our own CDC says that our actual maternal deaths are three times higher than reported. Forget the grief: it's rage I feel now.

Rage at the economic/political cesspool that this country has been dragged into...rage at the intentional dumbing down of the American populace...rage at the systemic graft and corruption that have become our political "system"...what journalist Greg Palast once labeled "the best democracy money can buy."

*****
For me this is one of the realities of the Oneness practices: I can no longer live in my isolated little bubble...with my own close friends nearby, in touch...and doing okay. I can't ignore that violence, in its abundant forms, happens with the magnitude it does.

I can no longer guard my heart in ways that I thought would protect it...but actually does violence to me (and others) by cutting me off from the truth of fully living...from the full-spectrum realities of Life.