Tiger Lilies, Part 1

God save the people 

For thine they are 

Thy children as thy angels fair

A few days ago, while I was walking, some thoughts were kind of stalking me. When I had a few minutes to write them down, I called that reflection, "Diamond Lilies," because it was a spiritual variation on the Steel Magnolias theme. I was looking for an idiom for strong women who have found their voice and their power and yet remain true to their gentle feminine hearts. 

Today, I see it more as Tiger Lilies* because we are as strong as a tiger, passionate and dynamic in play with a strong instinctual nature; and yet as soft, graceful and creative as the lovely summer lily.

I think of Jesus admonition to us to be “gentle as doves and wise as serpents.” We are designed naturally to brim over with the gentle life-giving wisdom of the Holy Spirit and yet live as rooted and worldly wise as the mythological serpent.

Mothers and lovers, perhaps, is also who we are designed to be. And, more so, those two qualities, two natures, seem to weave throughout all our relationships, calling to us, to be both. Again, they are contemplative and active, being and doing, yin and yang, light and dark. 

To be true to ourselves is to honor both forces within us as they show up in all our relationships.To prefer one over the other is to give power to the shadow and live our lives unconsciously. We need to be conscious and non-judgmental in order to evolve and increase in our life force.

Remaining conscious mandates that we remain lord and master of ourselves and honor our decisions, rather than surrendering to external people and institutions. We must remain awake to this. I think it’s important to challenge ourselves, asking ourselves to look at the truth in any situation and not be seduced by the serpent’s wine and charming words which feed our egos at the cost of our souls.

Autonomy and self-determination are essential for the conscious life. That may mean disappointing people who want or feel they need you to do what they want or feel they need. We are not here to be enablers, helping each other keep the blinders on, comforting the blind. We are not on this planet to help everyone remain intoxicated and numb to their essential life-giving pain.

Pain is the sense of discomfort when birthing a larger part of yourself. Life doesn’t come without challenge. Perhaps we are to midwife each other, rather than drug each other into oblivion. I think we are to choose an alert state of wakefulness in an intentional vulnerability, rather than a soft sleep state and blind to the fox’s sneak attack. Intentional vulnerability is not the same as weakness. Weakness is blindness, intentional vulnerability is softness and in that softness is a strength, a white power, a power that gives life, laughs, purrs like a kitten and yet hears the rumblings of danger a mile away and darts into the cave.

For all of us, it is clearly a radical openness to God, and to each other. If we are closed so as not to be hurt, we are closed to loving each other and closed to God. So to be able to hear God and the warning of danger, we must remain open, vulnerable, soft belly exposed. It is frightening, even terrifying, and yet it is the very meaning of being alive. It is the oasis in the desert. It is life among on a plateau of death. It is Jeremiah’s dry bones returning to the flesh.

to be continued tomorrow . . .

* This idiom, Tiger Lilies, is what led to this blog.  This was the initial reflection that i wrote which opened up a whole theme that is still vitally alive here on Tiger Lilies.