The beauty of buoyancy
Transcriptions are written records of KK channeling Jonathan during Evenings with Jonathan Get-to-gathers, in which Jonathan responds to participants’ quest-ions on personal-universal themes.
Infused with thought-provoking, love-invoking wisdom, each transcript offers practical application for spiritual revelation.
In these transcriptions, Jonathan touches on themes including but not limited to:
collapsing restraints
the beauty of buoyancy
no such things as a small movement
guilt and joy (capping happy)
acknowledgment as a primary step in healing (repair), (intimacy)
sharing as an antidote for meanness
the power of we
how to move w magnitude & anger, sadness
Reparations - what is reparative?
January 17, 2020
Jonathan: Okay, dear ones, welcome! We say a whole-hearted, heartening good eve to each and every one of you and all of you and the entirety of who you are in every given moment, including now. So many times words in your language are employed with a certain constraint, when in fact they can be quite expansive. Now we'll get on to that a bit later in the eve but first we would like to say that these times indeed are quite dramatically and rapidly transforming so many amongst you, with respect to what is breaking and breaking open. And we did cover some of the breakages and openings in our last convening, and we will continue to do so for those of you with that kind of interest, because we do feel the current times are more than ever in your lives, dear ones, quite conducive for the desired transformations that have been percolating, popping and hoped for all of your lives until now. And now that time is collapsing to a certain extent, you can move forward without the same constraints. Some of you currently experiencing hardships and suffering are not able to see the benefits of such a collapse because there is detritus in your vision, but what we can say is that as things collapse, so do the previous restraints, and sometimes all that’s needed is to simply take a step. And we say that not as mocking the effort needed to hearken your energies and apply them in a different manner. Now more than ever, there is a wide open range, if you can think of it like that, for reverberation. Structures have collapsed and wavelengths reverberate instantaneously across large, vast, expansive territories. It is an exciting time for change, not just for the sake of something different, but for desired change that has been previously constrained. Because all is wide open, including hearts that are opening, minds and thoughts that are opening, cultures that are opening to each other. And that is a long winded way of saying we welcome your questions at this time!
X: I’m finding it difficult to stay grounded in this kind of timelessness and unknowingness, feeling adrift amid a confusion, and elasticity of time. Days kind of go on forever and then not. And so it's this never ending unknowingness and feeling adrift.
Jonathan: Indeed. And that is the key word there: adrift.
X: And staying grounded. Like how to stay grounded in time and stay steady?
Jonathan: You don't! In other words, what is currently happening is that the emphasis on grounding requires orientation to a fixed position. ‘Oh, let's ground ourselves, let's stay where we are and plant our feet and feel the center of our bodies.’ Indeed, nothing wrong with that. But when there has been a cataclysmic, colossal opening in the not only universe, but in the cultures at large, if you try and remain grounded with those motions, it's going to result in a sort of seasickness, because you'll find yourself getting tossed about . Now, the term adrift is quite liberating, Imagine allowing yourself to float People go on vacation so they can coast, swim, feel buoyant and held by elements other than their usual daily stressors. What becomes disorienting is trying to fit the newer, current situation into the previous constraint. It's like trying to fit an unraveling Nautilus into a square.
We suggest rather than focus on adhering to groundedness, remove that thought template and insert a new one which says, “For harmonic experience, the current times require flexibility and elasticity. ‘Adrift’ and ‘elastic’ are palpably primed for the times, because it means you are able to follow the movements, though you know not where you go. And that is perhaps where some of the confusion has arisen, because even though it's always true on a certain level that you know not ever where you go, or you may intend to go a certain place and you know not where you'll end up! Now it's more obvious because the directional pulls are arising from here, there and everywhere. So if you can think of it as how to allow yourself to become more buoyant, it's not by fitting the previous orientation into the current one because it's not a match. We wouldn't recommend adhering to anything, particularly when there has been quite a lot of upheaval. And upheaval, though heaving, is also an upward direction. There is something a-rising. It may not look like it but you can follow the motions and expand the previous container that had more demarcated fields and boundaries. Picture it watery, flexible, more sphere than a square. Now, how do you ground yourself in a pool? That requires a different balance. One of the things that will support a new balance is not holding tight to the old sense of what was balancing. We're not suggesting that there is anything wrong with groundedness. However, as a centre point for the current movements, we feel it's not an aligned match because it puts you in resistance to them. Something in motion requires flexibility and fluidity to go with the flow. And there is an accelerated flow right now, not that you need to increase your own personal speed. Flowing requires a new model, a new framework, a new mindset or place where you set your mind according not to what was but to what is and what can be. Because again, it's not that you ever really know where you're going, it's just that now you can welcome more that not knowing. Are there any further ponderings or wonderings around that elaborate response? We recommend you swim, or allow your buoyancy!
X: Yes. Thank you. This is about staying in movement as a practice and allowing buoyancy and I’m liking the image of swimming. So thank you.
Jonathan: You're welcome. And not so much staying in movement, but allowing the movements of your body to move with multidimensional movements. Which sounds redundant, but is not! (laughing). Sometimes a movement can be intellectual as well as physical. Isn't it interesting in the language? ‘Oh that touched me so much. It was so moving.’ You rarely hear ‘I'm so touched. That was so grounding. Do you follow?
X: Yes. Yes, it is all moving is the response. It is all moving. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
Jonathan: So it's a time for great movements and allowance of them. And bold moves and simple moves. And millimetrical moves because there's no such thing as a small movement, if you will.
X: Hmm. True. Thank you.
Jonathan: Indeed! Welcome back dear!
L: Thank you. Always an honor. Thank you, everyone, for being here, too. The last time we all gathered, I'm still very emotional and sad and dealing with all of this, but I want to thank you for the help you gave me. What you said about using the word ‘we.’ And so I've really been using that word. I send a newsletter out and I we! When I make posts - we! And you know I teach dance. I'm a mover, I find allowing something different is what I've been asking of my body and my heart and my thinking. And I feel like it really is coming from my soul and so your words have really helped me with clarity as to how to proceed. I've had several bumps with clients where I felt like I couldn't speak, like I had a knee in my throat, that I wasn't actually seen. I was on eggshells. So in using your suggestion of using ‘we,’ I work from inside to expand, and all of us do. When I go through bumps and am afraid to voice that I don't feel well before I start work, I've pushed past that by using ‘we.’ It's a time for us and I'm getting filled up. It was so beneficial because it’s taken me off the hook and I think it's done that for others.
Jonathan: It's taken you off your own hook, dear one. Your own isolating hook.
The ‘I'm all alone.’ When in fact, you exist among millions and billions.
L: Yes. Right. And that was there intellectually. But the emotional constraints, the metaphors for me are abounding now. Chains, shackles, all of that stuff is coming up. And I'm saying 'no more!' And I think women, we all need that! So it is a ‘we.’ It's an opportunity to see the vision you want because of this opening. You were saying this vast space that's open is an opportunity for the we for us. It’'s still very painful daily because stuff that's horrible keeps happening and I guess they're sacrifices for the greater good that are clearly there for us to see now because of cameras.
Jonathan: We wouldn't term them sacrifices, dear one, because sacrifice entails that the person had a choice, or will. involved. So it’s more of a verb: they have been sacrificed.
One thing we suggest is, rather than doing something different, which refers back to the old model - different than what? a newer term, allowing something fresh to arise in you.
L: Okay. Yeah.(tearing up) (sigh).
Jonathan: Because we do feel that sacrificing is part of the old model, dear one. And it's not that it didn't have its place, but the places and spaces are entirely new today, There is a call for newness in each of you and all of you. And the beauty about newness is that it can be as bold or not as you need it to be, because it hasn't ever yet been, so nobody has an element of comparison. And if you'll notice, a lot of the judgment comes with comparison. You're better than worse than smarter than more beautiful than. But if it's a new model, a new occurrence, it's fresh! You've never tasted it before. So you have nothing to compare it to. And there's liberation in that. You can simply go forward without all that baggage. The old model is no longer the reference. That's already occurring,we're simply naming it with more precision. And it's why there is a collective disorientation, because many people live according to the past model and are attempting to bring it forward as a reference point. Well, I won't do that again, so I'll do something else but it won't be that. And now whatever that was is no longer relevant, because what that was, was in relation to other that's that no longer are. So a lot of dissolution. Which is a form of solution in itself. Because it allows more room for the underlayers of the previous problem but without the complacency that can occur when people know things.
It’s all there in front of you without the normal 'distractions,' which weren't normal, by the way. So no returning to the norm because it wasn't normal. And that is indeed good news, dear one, because you're living history in the making by being able to participate in creating a new, fresh norm that serves the greater whole rather than a select few.
It doesn't mean there won't be mourning in the process, which is an acknowledgment of the magnitude. That’s key. It's how you know you're on an upright track for transforming formerly familiar norms into more harmonious ones. So we're delighted you found two simple letters that can funnel more of your own lightenings and lightning rods of ideas and light and lightheartedness and even heavy heartedness and all of it, dear one.
Two simple letters, which now have room to grow. Because like all words that are messengers of meaning, with the recitation, it becomes an invocation, and eventually the meaning will move through you in deeper ways so you don't have to think your way there. The more you say it, the more it is within. Used consciously it is an invocation. Which, interestingly enough, is part of your vocation, dear one.
So you're in vocation when you use ‘we,’ which is why it has impact. We sense it will drop even deeper as you continue receiving responses. It's going to be your new norm.
L: I think I understand, but sometimes I feel so much intense passion about doing it that there's a broken heart from forever it feels like. There's anger and hurt and fear. I just feel, (sigh) overwhelmed with all of that in still trying to hold the 'we' and the love and I just want to say 'Just get it! Just!' But you know what? People get what they're supposed to. That's when I have to back up and say.
Jonathan: What we would say, dear one, is don't try and hold it. It's too big.
L: (crying)
Jonathan: When you have a we, you can share it. It's not all on you. Some of you, quote unquote, 'get it' and some don't yet get. So the more you allow yourself to receive, which is a form of getting, the more others can osmotically absorb permission as well to receive and get your offerings. They become more potent because you're the receiver.
L: Osmotically. Like osmosis.
Jonathan: Like that! (giggling) Without your extensive labor going out and being siphoned off, attempting to hold that which is not meant to be even steady, dear one. In other words, if you hold on to something, what happens? It doesn't go anywhere.
L: Right, Right, Right. Yes. Okay. Ugh.
Jonathan: So don't hold it, let it go. Allow the love that arises and then let it go. And if it doesn't arise, then it's even easier to let it go. You can move in and out of amplitudes without being 'wrong' or wronging another. It's quite an unreasonable expectation, even for those who have an exalted sense of rightdoing to expect a certain feverish and unwavering pace with respect to your own output. It's quite all right, to let go of the love to refuel your own self Love, dear one. Which is a bit of a misnomer but we'll use it because we feel it marks a necessary distinction.
L: You're talking about love. Anger comes up as the reaction to the hate that I see.
Jonathan: It's okay to hate hate. It's an e-motion. It will move eventually, dear one. It's in the resistance that it has to persist. Resistance sometimes induces a persistence in what it is that you'd like to elicit the opposite of. So no need to resist the anger, dear one, but allow it to move through you. It can be a galvanizing force if you don’t hold it tightly, giving it a certain propulsive force that spurs forward movement. Do not underestimate the value and potency of consciously invoking 'we' on a day to day basis. That's being an activist in itself. You'll never know the entirety of the reverberations from that. But you can know that if it flows through you with the accompanying intentions to improve and induce greater harmony and love, it will go out, dear one. Even if you don't see its receivers. And it's quite beneficial to you as well.
L: Yeah. It's like this pebble in the pond feeling. I've always had that vision and it feels like we can make a really big new pond.
Jonathan: Well we'd call it more of a boulder in a lake. So it's quite a splash right now!
L: (laughing) I like that. Yeah. You're the best! Thank you, Jonathan.
Jonathan: Indeed. Thank you for your inquisitive mind and body!. Much love, dear L.
Welcome dear I!
I: Thank you. Okay wonderful. So what I would like to know is a way in which I can express myself and not be so intense. Excited inside. If I tell a story and get emotional about it I feel internally agitated. It takes my focus and I don't express my ideas well.
Jonathan: We have a suggestion, dear one, that doesn't involve tempering or diminishing your excitement. What it does include is an additional narration of it. In other words, when you're telling a story and getting excited, you're already narrating. And one of the things that can be helpful when the anxious agitation begins to intrude is to welcome and acknowledge it. Acknowledgement is a primary step in any transformational process or healing. You can simply include it as part of your conversation, ‘Oh, I'm getting so excited and carried away! It's becoming even more difficult to get it out. Let me take just a moment and back up!’
Narrate what's happening so that you cultivate an allowance of the excitement. Because we're also sensing that during the narration you become your listener at the same time. 'Well, what's she doing and why is she saying it like that? And why is she now getting so emotional that she can't even -?’ You're assessing rather than staying with the excitement and including it, do you follow?
I: Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Jonathan: So be more inclusive with you-sive! Imagine those stories, (flat toned) ‘'Once upon a time there was an x, y, z, ho hum,' and now we are sleeping. But if we say, 'Once upon a time there was QUITE a story and I -- One moment, please! It was an exciting storm, and I'm getting ahead of myself!’ It's quite contagious, the excitement, if you allow it. Do you follow?
I: Yes. Yes. Okay thank you so much. Very helpful. Thank you.
Jonathan: Indeed, dear one. Thanks to you! Inclusion goes for all of you and all of us!
Catharine: Does anyone have any questions or thoughts? Sharing? Yeah, go ahead A.
A: I love what you just said about joy and how more than ever we need joy. The planet needs joy. And yet it's a good segue into the racial issue because I'm finding it even more difficult. I have issues with joy in general anyway, because I can tend to feel guilty in happiness, which makes me very talented at-
Jonathan: That's quite an issue.
A: Yeah. And even more so now that this whole issue of white privilege is all the more at the fore. And so it's just this concern and almost like I'm very, very, very practiced at not being happy, not being too happy, even though there's plenty to be happy about.
Jonathan: Capping happy.
A: Capping happy. And so now again,
Jonathan: That's quite funny! (laughing)
A: (laughing) Yeah! But I don't know about that because I can really come to believe that I'm not just capping it, but that it's not even there. And so the question becomes, as more and more people are going through more and more difficulty, how do I deal with this discomfort of my life getting better?' While a lot of people's lives are getting worse?
Jonathan: Shall we begin there?
A: Sure.
Jonathan: The interesting thing about guilt, dear one, is that it's often invoked as a pseudo neutralizer; if you feel guilty enough, it will compensate for someone else's perceived lack. When in fact guilt is focused on you, on perceived excess, so it does very little to mitigate perceived lack. In other words, if you have a sumptuous meal and somewhere across the globe someone is starving, contrary to what many of you learned in childhood, if you refuse that meal, it's not going to feed the person across the globe. Now we're not saying dive into that meal and forget without a care all those who can't experience the luxuries and privileges of your current culture. But what we have yet to say is about pure joy- not manufactured joy and forcing a feeling of 'positivity’ when it's not there, but the joy that comes at being alive where you find it. Whether it's in a good meal or a good home or a good relationship, or even a good joke. Levity is another way of saying lightness. Lightness is another way of elaborating on light. And enlightening is a word that at its root, involves the transmission of light. Curtailing your light and joy, dear one, does no good to anyone except those who prefer to remain sacrificial in their own pursuits. Who benefits from your guilt?
A: Well, some people want to take advantage of it in some way or manipulate it. But this brings up the bigger question, which is reparations. How are reparations actually made and how are they received? I've been hearing so many people speaking that haven't been able to express a lot of racial anger at all the injustice. And I'm wondering more and more, what would feel reparative? I'm not sure. It's unclear to me if I have the capacity to provide or offer something that can be received that is repairing. And that might be my ignorance and my laziness and my whiteness, you know.
Jonathan: That's what we would call your formerly familiar fixed thinking.
A: Yeah. So that's what I'd like to know is, what is this way forward that we can make amends in a way that can be received, however clumsily, I guess.
Jonathan: One of the first steps, dear one, is knowing it's not a singular way, because it involves a multitude of people and situations and historical occurrences. What is reparative for one is not enough for the other, and is too much for another. There's not one gauge that is an across- the-board reparative. One of the first and foremost things we suggest is to bow down to what you're hearing. Think of the times that you've been harmed, wronged, abused, or victimized' and what is often even more painful than the actual violation is the lack of acknowledgement of the violation.
Imagine someone who harmed you saying, ‘ I didn't realize it then’ or ‘I did, but chose to do it anyway. Now I can see that I wronged you and hurt you.’ Would that be reparative?
A: Yes.
Jonathan: So there's a hearing, listening and reflecting back. And you can reflect back, ‘I didn't know there was so much I didn't understand. I now see by your response, your pain, there's more to it than I ever realized. And by the collective pain that is now more visible.' So reparative is an excellent word, dear one, because it's open ended. It's not a reparation. It's an ongoing adjective that can apply to infinite situations. But foremost is bowing down to what you're hearing with acknowledgment. Hearkening back to what we said earlier, there's no such thing as a small movement because in your interdependent world, what affects one eventually affects all. And that's been swept under the racist, pejorative, prejudicial rug, which has gotten so big it can no longer fit there. The degree of repression has released the combustion of expression. So acknowledging where you see pain can work wonders for repair. Once you begin opening those viaducts to more viable ways of exchanging, saying 'Indeed, I see you where previously I did not.' is quite potent. It releases a previous ignorance and creates fresh territory to move forward with. 'I couldn't see you before, so I couldn't do what you needed me to do, which is see you so I could stop harming you.' A lot of violation and violence occurs because human beings don't see each other as fellow human beings. So the more seeing, the more humane and reparative it is. Oftentimes in your current culture, particularly in the Americas, grandness is favored over perceived smallness. 'Well, if you do something, go BIG!' We say go big by going small and intimate because intimacy is missing. Segregation is a lack of intimacy. You don't intimately know someone other than your perceived 'kind.' And that's quite unkind. Most of the time when the word 'kind' is invoked as tribe, it's not kind. It allows a certain meanness. So back to your initial inquiry, dear one. One response that can be quite reparative is to acknowledge and bow down to what you're hearing, and that can look many different ways. You can see something and bow down to what you're seeing, even if people don't see you, it's in the bowing that you're actually participating in the reparative response. Do you follow?
A: Yes. But I'd like clarity on the difference between bowing and feeling guilty, because we were just talking about guilt not really serving anyone. So that's where I get really confused because I have a lot of love and a lot of respect and honoring that has been there for a lifetime. And that not being seen or received is very painful to me. So I'm noticing a certain defensiveness, like I'm not guilty of this, that or the other. I might be guilty of other things, but I want to be received for the good that I carry because I want that to be reparative, not rejected. Is that clear?
Jonathan: Indeed. You want it how you want it. Which isn't quite reparative. Now, we don't underestimate the intention and substance in what you said, because we did hear 'I'm in pain, too. What about me?' It goes for everyone. However, we understood the reparative inquiry as related to the current movements occurring. What we heard you say was 'What would be actually reparative if guilt isn't?'
A: Yes.
Jonathan: And we responded ‘a bowing down to what you're hearing.’ Bowing down isn't a negation of you. It's bowing down with all that you are, with all that you feel and with your awareness. It's not a subservient bow. It's an honoring, and it's not only a physical movement we're talking about. It is a listening with respect to what you're hearing and acknowledging the harm that has been inflicted.
A: I don't mind the bowing. I don't think I do anyway. It's more I want to help heal the pain. And I wish my love and honoring could help do that. And yet I don't feel that love and honoring can be received necessarily. And that's painful to me.
Jonathan: You're right, dear one. It can't be received initially because there's been a severing of relations. So what's reparative is repairing first the relational flow.
Once that’s more fluid, you have a channel which can conduct that love. It's a two-parter. A: Yeah. Yeah. So, I love - I love that. It's very helpful to say first the channel or the tissue itself has to be restored so that the neurotransmitters can even flow. It's like the synapses are completely fried. So that's super helpful. Thank you. Yeah.
Catharine: Somebody asked if you can say more about the meanness, and the need for intimacy and how to do that?
Jonathan: You’ve all experienced meanness from exclusion. It's interesting because as soon as the term 'kind' is tribally invoked aka ‘He's not one of our kind,' it gives implicit permission to be unkind, to refute shared humane terrain and innate kindredness. The word has been co-opted to create ‘other.’ Meanness is often unconscious. Like-mindedness can turn unkind because it perceives ‘other,’ which removes potential for sharing. Sharing is a form of intimacy. Being intimate involves the willingness to reveal, part of the willingness to heal. Intimacy necessitates sharing, a bridge you can move things to and across from with another person; not an ‘other’, but another version of you. Imagine the person you’re considering not your kind is actually another you! Kindness is potent beyond measure. ‘We’ too. Much much love to all of you dear ones, and continued fortitude in the tumult of the times plus the hope filled avenues that are arising. Fondly farewell until next time!