The Friction of Resistance

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 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. It is the friction that calls forth the new flame. 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. 

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 truly ignore the interconnectedness of everything on earth. I also do believe that the vitriol we are seeing is the natural resistance to a radical 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. These are lower energies present in every single one of us, and 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 unending banquets of fear. 

Imbolc is a celebration of the Celtic goddess Brigid (Bridget) who is a fire goddess. She is the power inside the dawn light and the new warmth of Springtime, and the fire inside healing and inspiration, and the transformation from one shape into another. She is the mythic way we try to grasp the power inside the song of Spring that calls up the new plants. It is said that Brigid breathes new life into the mouth of dead winter. 

Ignorance, greed and hate are winter-ish forces: cold, brittle, and compacted. Right now, as the sun angles higher in the sky and light increased day by day, we can remind ourselves that this expansion out of winter is also internal for us. We too have a song in us calling up the new plants. 

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 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 our enemies, the hard prayer is to ask our enemies to be healed of the three corrosive powers that are acting on them and through them. 

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, and imagining taking those energies from them by breathing them in. Then on your exhale, you send to them the energies of blessing that you have felt 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, which is 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 again and again at it. So, we must return anew to the effort and keep trying. 

I leave you with my version of a 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 earth. 

On Brigid’s day new life rises up.   

New life rises up.