Was this all necessary?

Musings on the morning after.

This morning I awoke on the heels of last night’s late night, waiting for the election returns to shine the light on who we must follow, next, as our esteemed president, feeling “raped,” battered, bruised, totally violated.

Stunned, shocked, sullied by evil, feeling as if I have been preyed upon by a gang, perhaps more than one, of self-interested bullies; the predators of the D.C. power game.

I have felt this way before, a long, long time ago; the era in my life when, coming to realize that the Camelot of my youthful idealism did not exist in Washington, D.C., I began the exodus that eventually led me to the life of serenity and peace that surrounds me now, out here in the mountains just above Harpers Ferry.  


Oh, for sure, we live amidst the war torn scars of the original “Civil War” out here. Nevertheless we are comfortably removed from the ones that crash and thunder on still, less than one hundred miles away in our nation’s capitol.

But isn’t there a better way than to bully our ways to success and burn the other guy, as we go, in this great country of our’s?

Even before the “excitement” of the election returns began their crescendo, late last night, the spiritual warrior in me was silently fighting its way to a new path to freedom, distanced from the intense battle-weary world of election campaigning. First steps first; I experienced gratitude for this precious democracy in which we live.

However, by the time the concession and acceptance speeches were done and I had rested my head on my pillow for the night, awakening vaguely refreshed, I began to hear the silent scream inside my head shrieking that I be liberated from the bondage I felt from this almost ceaseless, dirty campaign election ordeal.

But who, I asked myself, had been the perpetrators of this gang rape upon my mind and spirit, sans the actual physical violation? Of course, it had been the politicians, the media, the money brokers that hold tight to our present political system.

I knew these power players, well, in the life I left behind, decades ago when I chose the path of my higher education and a career as a psychotherapist. Setting myself up in private practice on the outer fringes of the D.C. metropolitan area, I had not yet been ready, then, however, until decades later to leave it all behind for these beautiful mountains.

Meditating, reflecting, contemplating on how to take my next steps in this brave new world of the morning after Election 2012, my mind turned, next, to my dear spirit sister, Susan, who had steadfastly vowed, last year at this time, to not allow these perpetrators of campaign violence to “hijack her goodness.”

Susan is of a different ilk than I. She likes best for her body, mind and spirit to stay on the ethereal plane. I, on the other hand, am strongly pulled to get down and dirty in the muddy game of dancing with the dark side before cleaning myself off for ascension, inclined to, also, dig down deep into the dirt as it surrounds me while I make my climb, if I believe the gain will be worth the pain.

A year ago when Susan steadfastly pledged she would not allow this election to sully her purity, this pledge made sense to me. I, too, was unwilling to voluntarily allow myself to be kidnapped, plundered and pillaged by the furor of the American presidential campaign game. 

Yet here I was the morning after feeling completely victimized by it all. Obviously I had been in it, not only of it.

Had I betrayed myself and my values while dear Susan kept herself clean and tidy? If so, always open to the teachable moment as I am, I asked myself, where had I erred as I made my way, personally, through  these heated, last days of Election, 2012, feeling powerfully impacted by them?

If I be a fool, I guess it was the Abkhazian Dinner that was my turning point. And, perhaps, it was also a turning point for me in my relationship with Susan. I think/feel as if I have now become an alien to her in the world she inhabits; the “other” to her that she knows not how to make room in her life to be with up close. Such is the challenge of overcoming polarization, even with the best of one’s friends. Oh dear. Oh, dear.

But, oh, there is so much more to my story on dancing with the dark side, Washington, D.C. style; lessons learned all the way back to my original flight from D.C., then Watergate, along with many other stories I have kept private until now, always believing, however, that somehow, the time would come when the lessons I’ve learned, the darkness transformed, at least in myself, would someday find use in the public domain. Maybe that time is now. I would certainly feel liberated, if this were so.

Among my greatest lessons is that over the years I have come to understand the similarities between convict games and those played by ourhigh leadership people. How can I, now, pass on what I’ve learned about the darkness and, almost paradoxically, that with this learning came, also, an enlightened belief in the capacities, undeveloped though they might be, of humanity for good in the end.

This is a faith that has come out of being down in dirt and the endless washing away and more washing that has come of being all muddy with others and then that liberating clearing that can come after; a belief in the capacity for purposeful human transformation, from the worst to the best. Not everyone is inclined to play in the mud of this game as a way to get clean.

So this was Election 2012 for me; deep enough into the dirt to get muddy, and, now, the morning after taking a nice hot, refreshing shower. I don’t think my life would make sense any other way for me.

Apparently, for me, the gain was, perhaps, worth the pain. Still I am “desperately seeking Susan.”

The morning after; a brave new, beautiful world?