Pushing Against the Flow ...

I had a healing yesterday with a dear classmate.   I was examining an aspect of my life that involved a branch on the Tree of Life that is labeled:  Gevurah.   It refers to boundary, structure, discernment,  judgment.   In conversation with this classmate,  what we both discovered is that when Gevurah is in its unhealed state,  it is passive in nature.   I felt so good at the start of my healing work about setting boundaries with others.   The truth was that,  while it looked like boundary-setting by all appearances,  it was a passive arresting of being in relationship.   The "flow"  (or what is known as Chesed -- Gevurah's partner branch on the Tree) is in essence being halted.  It is actually controlling another through what appears to be setting a limit.

Gevurah in its healed state,  on the other hand,  is active.  And,  when it's in relationship to Chesed,  it is a pushing against the flow.   There is conflict, even confrontation.  And there is juicy and meaty relationship !  Boundary setting involves taking a stance and sometimes even fighting for that position.   Not from a place of defensiveness but rather from a place of honoring the boundary that has been set with intention and that is also to be respected.

To draw a line in the sand and say to another:  "you can't cross this"  is passive.  It doesn't allow for the war that is part of negotiating a relationship.   For both of us to keep drawing lines,  moving them, questioning them, stepping our feet over them and stating our intentions for doing so is to be in the active dynamic of Life.  It is an alive engagement !

I have held out the literal and figurative hand to stop others in their tracks.  My will be done.  You will be controlled.   You will not have access to me.   You cannot threaten or hurt me.   This is setting boundaries from quivering terror.  And there is an aspect of this,  which has a palpable sensation,  of cutting another off right in their tracks,  ceasing the flow of human exchange.  It actually feels cruel and harsh.   I did this to many people over the years.

I was in a meeting tonight in which we read Step 1.  I am reminded that I am powerless over EVERY THING.   There is not a blessed thing that I have control over,  even when I act as if I do and,  even more self-centered,  when I act is if I have the RIGHT to.   

Pushing against the flow of Life is to be pulsating with it, dripping in its sweat,  in the thick of its hairy chest and heartbeat.  This is where I have the best chance of seeing God face-to-face in the eyes of another.