The Friction of Resistance

I live in South Minneapolis, a few blocks away from both places where Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed. I’ve been to their memorial sites to make prayers and have been warmed and moved by the incredible humanity pouring through my city.  

Since you cannot be in Minneapolis right now without thinking about resistance, I’m thinking about it a lot. As early February approaches, it brings the Celtic holiday called “Imbolc.” It’s the midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox, and as the days grow perceptively longer, Imbolc can be seen as the time of kindling the new fire of springtime. Every newly kindled fire is born out of some kind of resistance, some kind of friction – a transitory moment in which the fire may or may not light. The match head scrapes along, the lighter clicks, the flint resists until the spark agrees to leap out, lightning must crack open the still air. 

This is the “conservative and progressive” relationship in a nutshell. The new flame needs the friction in order to light. Many spiritually minded people naively have believed that the “change of consciousness” we are praying for would happen without resistance, that some kind of golden light would float down around us and we would simply awaken. That has never happened. Every awakening is accompanied by the desire to linger in sleep. 

I do believe that humans are in a rapid expansion of consciousness, if only for one reason: for the first time in our communal history, we can no longer honestly ignore the interconnectedness of everything on earth – not just locally and tribally, but everywhere. I also believe that the vitriol we are seeing is the natural resistance to a new flame being lit. 

However, what we are struggling against is as old as two-legged humanity. The true enemy has always been ignorance, greed and hate.  Every spiritual tradition says these are the three diseases, corrosive energies, or lower energies present in every single human. Each one of us is responsible for uncovering them in ourselves and trying our best to dissipate them. The food for these three old enemies is fear, which is why anyone trying to keep you in ignorance, greed and hate feeds you an unending banquet of fear. It is helpful to also reverse this: whoever is feeding me a banquet of fear is only trying to keep me in the small space of ignorance, greed and hate. 

Imbolc is a celebration of the Celtic goddess Brigid (Bridget), known as a fire goddess. She is the subtle fire of inspiration inside the dawn light and the warming of Springtime, and the hotter fire inside healing, and the intense fire inside transformation from one shape into another. These energies are available to each one of us, all the time, no matter our station in life, our history, or our failures. 

Ignorance, greed and hate are winter-ish forces: cold, brittle, and compacted. Right now, as the sun angles higher in the sky and light increases day by day, we can remind ourselves that this expansion out of winter is also internal for us, and species-wide. We too have a song inside us calling up the new plants. It is said that Brigid breathes new life into the mouth of dead winter. This is a decent mantra for today. 

There is the outer resistance that I see so gloriously all around me in my neighborhood and city. But we also can summon an important inner resistance, by refusing to get sucked into the fear that feeds the three enemies, particularly hate. Going to a protest takes courage, but it also takes courage to stand tall in this inner resistance and refuse to fill the air with your own righteous hate. Hate has its own ignorance because it robs the person you hate of their broad, complex and nuanced humanity. Rather than praying to God to utterly destroy your enemies, the hard prayer is to ask my enemies to be healed of the three corrosive powers that are acting on them and through them. One of the most radical protests you can do right now is to refuse to live in the fear that is being shoveled into our mouths. That, of course, is not easy to do. 

Tibetan Buddhism suggests a simple but challenging practice called Tonglen (“taking and sending”). It’s a layered practice, but one aspect is holding in your thoughts someone who is lost in ignorance, hate and greed. You understand them because you too have been lost in these energies in your own way. You imagine taking those energies from them by breathing them in. Then on your exhale, you send to them the energies of blessing that you have experienced in life: love, awe, gratitude. These are the antidotes to hate, ignorance and greed. This is not at all an easy practice. It is especially difficult to do it without condescension, which is arrogance blended with ignorance. 

Tonglen practice is, in my mind what Jesus was describing when he said, “I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44) and Luke 6:28: "Bless those who curse you.” This is the long-term solution to our troubles, and we fail at it again and again. So, we must return anew to the effort and keep trying. 

I leave you with my version of an old Brigid prayer at Imbolc:

On Brigid’s day the light is growing.

On Brigid’s day the warmth is rising.

On Brigid’s day the birds will be building nests.

On Brigid’s day the sheep will be birthing the lambs.

On Brigid’s day the new fire will warm the land. 

On that day Brigid breathes new life into the mouth of all dead winter.