What does being human mean to you?
Much of my writing practice has been about writing what is up for me. I find what is alive is most often what is present and not so much reaching into the recesses of my head. This is such a rich question from the Tribesteemup biweekly question that, as is often the case with these group questions, it will really take all of us writing about it to hit on all of the things. So I'm not going to make my post about answering the whole breadth of the question. I'll release myself in that regard and trust that the whole team's got that covered. I want to write about two things that came up for me when I started pondering the question.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
The Velveteen Rabbit or HOW TOYS BECOME REAL by Margery Williams
Vulernability
Unless we are going to live in a very false world, being human means being vulnerable.
Vulnerable etymologically comes from
1600, from Late Latin vulnerabilis "wounding."
As Leonard Cohen sings,
There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.
And this is one of the core elements of being human. These wounds, the basic scars of life that we all have, make us human. They make us relateable and as the Velveteen Rabbit grows to understand, they make us REAL.
Often we want to hide what makes us feel vulnerable. It's a scary process opening up or revealing these parts of ourselves, but truly we all have them. They make us human and keep us connected. Lest we be "ships passing in the night," it's important to remember that we're all in this together.
Our ability to Envision Brighter Tomorrow's is also a part of what makes us human and brings us together.
We have the ability to look at the past, amend what is not working or what could work better, evolve, take different steps, learn new skills and manifest what we'd like to see in the world.
These two elements, the wounding and the stepping forward to create a different future are essential parts of our being.
Lately I've been thinking of generational trauma or holding patterns that exist throughout families. Even the Bible acknowledges this by saying that the "sins of the fathers go upon the children and the children's children to the 3rd and 4th generation." These holding patterns are our inheritance just as surely as any piece of land, treasured china, money or heirlooms. A wound that we see our parents or parent's parents living from gets passed to us energetically from childhood. When we're born we have completely open and receptive energy systems. Slowly our environment works on us demonstrating to us "the way things are."
Those closest to us give us our first lessons in Earth School, but of course our lessons continue throughout our lives. We are in no way doomed to continue repeating our generational karma or stuck in the patterns of our ancestors. We can heal!
Earth School
This brings me to my next point, Earth school.
We all come here- whether from the stars, other planets, other dimensions or are reborn from a cyclical stage of earth-life (I'm not really sure, but these are some ideas!)- and are given the circumstances of our lives to work with. I wont get into that too much, but we are all undoubtedly products both of our environments and our soul's essence.
At some point in my life I knew I wanted to try Ayahuasca. I started getting the message pretty strongly and soon thereafter I went to Peru and was able to try it in the Amazon. Ayahuasca, a plant medicine in this case combining Banisteriopsis caapi vine and Chacruna leaves, is sometimes referred to as the Amazon University.
During my trip to Earth School, it was a very important part of my education to attend the Amazon University! It made me wonder what all of us up here in North America are even doing!? I gained so much respect and attention for the people of the Amazon, those who live in connection with the forest. It opened up my mind to countless possibilities for humanity and it opened up my eyes to my own healing, which is intimately connected to not only my life, but to the world.
While here in this Earth School we can learn and see things beyond our wildest imaginations. Life is not only sorrow, but also the heights of love, connection and joy. And often the deepest and greatest loves have the capacity to open us (sometimes through breaking us- breaking us open) to even more space for experience. Like carving out a bowl that now can hold more. These are only wounds if we stop when we are broken not realizing that the breaking expanded our borders and was actually an opportunity for the light to come in.
A part of being human is realizing that we are all connected. That what happens over here is not an isolated event, but surely ripples toward everything. When we know life as an opportunity to heal and to learn, those passageways open up to us. As we read in the Velveteen Rabbit,
"Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby."
Striving for some type of perfection or shielding ourselves off from pain, loss, loving, robs us of that very life that is so naturally human. I think one of the most radical and spiritual things we can do is to stay grounded in this earth life being present and experiencing what comes our way. We cannot hide or run from Life's Lessons in Earth School, but if you don't break easily, have too sharp of edges or have to be too carefully kept, welcome to the club because you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.
