Victoria S. Hardy

Victoria S. Hardy

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

The Calling


I’m often asked, “How do you read all that stuff and not lose your mind?” I usually just shrug or laugh as an answer to the question, but I know I walk a fine line. I am reminded of Friedrich Nietzsche’s words, “He who fights monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

The truth is, ignorance is bliss and opening our eyes to the realities behind the illusions can be frightfully disturbing and challenging. The fear comes when the veil is ripped away and we realize things are not what they seem and the challenge comes in ignoring the shock value and discerning the bottom line.

As the information swirls about, now carrying prefixes like dis- and mis-, and the weight of our responsibility hangs heavy on our shoulders to discern what is real, we are literally being driven to distraction. I struggle, we all struggle.

There are folks on the earth that feel they have been called, not to join the priesthood or commit to a religion, but called to speak out, to study, to unravel, to discover and to share what they have learned. This calling doesn’t seem to have a clear goal or ending point, it just is and it is strong. These people have nothing in common and often see the same ideas from radically different perspectives; the only thing they seem to share is an odd pull and a strange, unknown knowledge leading them to seek.

I suppose in society, we are all walking a fine line, a lot of money is spent to keep us all thinking in the same direction and straying from the path is frowned upon. Yet, those who feel that they have been called cannot help themselves from boldly stepping from that broad path and in a sense, it often feels as though their choices have been removed. Something inside them has awakened and will not be denied. The simple, rehearsed answers known from childhood no longer satisfy.

I complain a lot about the psychotropic pharmaceuticals being passed out like candy these days and the way angst, struggle and rebellion are now classified as diseases and I do that because the calling is different for each of us, but we must be able to hear it and know that it is natural, not a disorder. The time has come to put faith into our instincts, our subtle knowings and understand the world is submerged in illusion making, not truth telling.

Not all feel the call, and many who don’t may tell us the call itself is the illusion, the disorder, but for those who dampen their instincts, they are much like the frog in a cool pot of water, set to boil. We must remember that no one said the path is easy and if it were easy, would it be worth it in the end? Not all will understand and truly, how can we expect them to when we don’t fully? We only feel a new, undeniable drive and sudden flashes of insight, we didn’t design it, we’ve only been called into something that is larger than we can imagine and although a blessing, it can be frightening and disorienting.

I am often told that I am brave to write what I write and I have been warned that perhaps I should not be so bold, but even fear is not enough to dampen the call. Hang tight, Seekers, keep doing what you are doing and know that in the end (which is also the beginning) we will have made a difference.

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