Say Thank You to the Villain
I’ve been listening to Ani DiFranco’s song Hour Follows Hour on repeat. Then as I was scrolling through insta this morning, seeing memes about the health insurance CEO and the “drones” and UFOs over New Jersey and mayors demanding answers from higher up a chain that knows nothing (we’ve leaned the ladders against the wrong walls, my friends), and oh my god the people wearing hoodies all over New York, it all tumbled through me like a poem or something else, not like a well thought out blog post about blah blah whatever.
pluto in aquarius, power to the people
It got me thinking about the usefulness of the external enemy. How sometimes it’s so helpful to look “out there” and see someone we can blame, someone we can hold up as the Evil One who is causing all of the problems. We can claim victim and then look over there and find the victimizer and sometimes that’s so fucking true. Victimization happens and people are victimized and you guys know me - I never skip around the suffering, I’m the champion of the body and the inner child and the reality of the suffering that exists, so listen closely to what I’m saying and what I’m not. You know I’m all about Evolution Through Suffering. Getting so good at drinking in the compassion that naturally arises from suffering until we are overflowing with it, until there’s nothing inside of us that it hasn’t touched, and from that place it spills over and then we have compassion for others and we have enough and we start looking for ways we can help. And until then, the job is to keep drinking the compassion, gently receiving it into all of our dark corners until it heals us and until we truly understand, no shame. There is no need for shame.
shame exists
So anyway, there’s this external enemy. The one out there who is causing all the problems. And it can be so helpful, because it lights us on fire. The external enemy, the thing to fight against, the Empire (I am a Star Wars nerd, but only for Andor), the injustice, the boot on the neck, and don’t get me wrong, we do need to fight. After all, how would we get liberated without the thing to fight against?
Right?
fuck the systems, never the people
Evolution Through Suffering is getting sick of it, trying every door, falling down on every floor, and finally deciding to meet the tender innocence inside who’s so fucking tired. Then we make a change and do everything for her. Everything to make sure she’s healed and whole and safe. We even learn to time travel (actually though, for real) and go back and rescue her from the pain and suffering and causes and conditions and circumstances that shaped her into the one who is having to hold it all down until we come along and she can finally rest. We never stop working with Evolution Through Suffering. We sit on a throne of suffering. And we get so good at applying the compassion that she feels safe, and then she becomes the Healthy Maiden, the Fool in the Tarot, she wants to GO, and fuck around and find out is her motto.
suffering exists
You guys ever notice that doom is a mind virus and the idea that we can kill the world is a mind virus and at the same time we are helpless to stop killing the world and it’s a mind virus, and we are addicted to victimhood and the struggle and helplessness and pointing the finger out there? And maybe, just maybe, we secretly want the world to end? We secretly love those Armageddon dreams because we just want this all to fucking stop? But we love the fight, the play, the dance. We want something to struggle against, and that. makes. sense. This is just my worldview (take it or leave it or find your own, please), but I know that somewhere back there or up there or right here (it’s all happening at once, right?) I have been the oppressor. I have been victim and oppressor. I have seen both sides of that coin. As I was writing that, I was thinking about me being the villain in past lives, and that’s true, but who am I fucking kidding. I’ve been the oppressor in this life, many times. I have been the villain, the nightmare. And I’ve been the victim, the receiver of the nightmare. I’ve been both, and from being the victim I’ve learned compassion and from being the villain I’ve learned humility, like fuck, oh my god, it’s me. I didn’t know I was capable of that, I thought it was someone else, but it’s me. We all suffer under the systems that don’t serve. Maybe we are all good people who’ve done some bad things. We can only hold so much is what I figure. We keep the eye on the big picture, but the picture keeps getting bigger (that Ani D, by the way, not me).
there is an end to victimhood
We are watching the collective shadow rise. And I can say plainly, something needs to break. I didn’t want either candidate in office, to be honest. Gaza. Ukraine. Homelessness. $6700 deductible and $13,000 max out of pocket and $490/month premium payment. The animals, the trees. Come on. So yes, fuck the Empire, fuck the system, but be careful. If we don’t check our own ethics, we become what we fight. We switch back and forth between victim and villain and we become one and then the other and the dance goes on. Samsara is being stuck in the cycle of suffering. There is no blame.
learn to turn the wheel
I dare us to skip to the end where we say thank you to the villain. We say thank you to the external enemy. Could Neo awaken without the Matrix? Without Agent Smith? Could Evey wake up without V? Could the AO be with the AO without Hap? Remember in the Hunger Games when Coin becomes Snow? Careful. We are woven together. If we don’t see ourselves in the other “we” become “them”. Look for secret third options instead. Engage deeply with the Mystery and your own interior landscape and - spoiler - you’ll find a shattering grief at the center of reality that ultimately leads to unconditional love for all beings. Don’t take my word for it, though. Find out for yourself.
no one is free until everyone is free
You really want a (r)evolution? Want to be a (r)evolutionary? Keep looking until you have an experience that shows you unequivocally that death isn’t the end. What’s there to be afraid of then?
Lyrics to Crime for Crime by Ani DiFranco
the big day has come
the bell is sounding
I run my hands through my hair one last time
outside the prison walls
the town is gathering
people are trading crime for crime
everyone needs to see the prisoner
they need to make it even easier
they seem me as a symbol, and not a human being
that way they can kill me
say it’s not murder, it’s a metaphor
we are killing off our own failure
and starting clean
standing in the gallows
everyone turned my way
I hear a voice ask me
if I’ve got any last words to say
and I’m looking out over the field of familiar eyes
somewhere in a woman’s arms a baby cries
I think guilt and innocence are a matter of degree
what might be justice to you
might not be justice to me
I went too far, I’m sorry
I guess now I’m going home
so let any amongst you cast the first stone
now we’ve got all these complicated machines
so no one person ever has to have blood on their hands
we’ve got complex organizations
and if everyone just does their job
no one person has to understand
you might be the wrong color
you might be too poor
justice isn’t something just anyone can afford
you might not pull the trigger
you might be out in the car
and you might get a lethal injection
’cause we take a metaphor that far
the big day has come
the bell is sounding
I run my hands through my hair one last time
outside the prison walls
the town has gathered
people are trading crime for crime
people are trading crime for crime
people are still trading crime for crime