The face of fear
I’m afraid. I have a hard time accepting that. I haven’t been able to resolve in my heart and head that two women, one whom I adored, were murdered in our beautiful mountains.
I feel afraid. The other night my partner said, “You lived in Chicago, Angela!” Yes, I also lived in Oakland, right on the cusp of gentrification, where crime was regular. Tires slashed, our neighbors held up at gunpoint, our other neighbor’s house broken into. I suppose I was afraid, yes. I can say with confidence, though, I was less afraid than I am now. In an urban space my nervous system expected to be on-guard and I behaved accordingly. I took precautions. I locked my doors and didn’t walk alone at night.
Nature is my sanctuary. I know it is the sanctuary for many of you, as well. I let my guard down in nature. My girlfriends and I hike and ride alone, or with each other. We camp alone in remote places of the desert and mountains. On top of losing Kylen and her wife, Crystal, we are processing the fear of connecting with spirit and ourselves in our sanctuary, the outdoors.
I trust the fear will pass. The wound is raw. Horrific violence against women that were loved by our community. A murderer that hasn’t been found. Outlaw country. So many places to hide. So many places to not see a soul. So many places that heal my soul and they feel unavailable to me right now.
I recognize that I have been feeding my fear. I know what the numbers say, we are more likely to die in a car accident or from heart disease. What about the wild animals? There are surely more mountain lions than gunmen in these mountains and high desert landscapes. I told my partner, “If faced with the horror of a gunman or a mountain lion on my path, I will choose the mountain lion every time.”
As humans, we navigate fear daily. Fear has many faces. The fear of dying. The fear of something happening to someone we love. The fear of following our dreams. The fear of failing. So much fear.
Fear isn’t all bad. It creates boundaries, sometimes keeps us safe. Fear reminds us we’re alive and to live while we’re here.
Earlier this month, while hiking with a girlfriend I said, “I can’t believe after all of these years of practice I am still afraid to kick up into handstand.” She said, “I’m afraid every time I ride my dirt bike.” I thought for a moment and realized that I’m afraid each time I get on my horse. I’m also a little afraid each time I push send on one of these emails and share something I’ve written. I’d call this the good fear. But maybe there is a better word for the emotion of these experiences?
Feeling lost in how to navigate my emotions this past week, I turned to meditation and spiritual wisdom. I found moments of peace in my meditation practice. In, When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron writes about the practice of meditation and dealing with our emotions.
In practicing meditation, we’re not trying to live up to some kind of ideal – quite the opposite. We’re just being with our experience, whatever it is. If our experience is that sometimes we have some kind of perspective, and sometimes we have none, then that’s our experience. If sometimes we can approach what scares us, and sometimes we absolutely can’t, then that’s our experience. “This very moment is the perfect teacher, and it’s always with us” is really a most profound instruction. Just seeing what’s going on – that’s the teaching right there. We can be with what’s happening and not dissociate. Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our weird, unfathomable, ordinary everyday lives.
I’m sending so much love and peace to all the aching hearts right now that loved Kylen and Crystal. I’m grateful for the heart connection I felt with Kylen and for the light that radiated from her being. I was looking at her photos on Instagram and a piece of art hanging in the background behind her bunny caught my eye. It looked like a needlepoint, hanging sideways, with these words surrounded by stars,
We are all just walking each other home.