KS&L 67 Independence Day

by Tina Erwin

       What does independence day mean on a spiritual level? Perhaps it just means the freedom to be spiritual in any manner we wish. Maybe it is looking around the world and noticing where that freedom exists and how it was gained. Maybe it is looking around ourselves and noticing what we had to do to be free from that which has tormented us emotionally for a very long time.

         Either way we look at it, gaining independence either from a petty despot, or an emotional prison requires some type of effort, some type of sacrifice. We cannot define independence if we do not know what imprisonment looks and feels like - obviously a polarity issue.  So we have to fight for what we believe in, we have to fight for what is the right thing to do and sometimes we have to have help to achieve that independence. 

         Often, it is extremely difficult to remove a powerful despot as we have observed throughout history - we just have to have help.  If imprisonment is the norm, how do we have any conception of what freedom feels like unless we are aware enough to know that we long for it? If we are numb to our situation, we stay in denial, we stay in a place of fear. 

         If we choose to come out of that situation, it can be really, really scary - most people at least know what the torture routine is. If we have to leave what we know to understand something new, we have to have a whole new level of courage and the number of people who have that level is not as high as we think or would like it to be.

          Emotionally, we have to have help to remove that emotional despot/monster who has tormented us, sometimes for life times. Help that is often costly in what we realize we have to leave behind. Imagine that the people who left Europe for the United States had nothing but their courage in their pockets. Most of them had modest means. Yet they longed to know what it would feel like not to be imprisoned.

         People who declare their independence from their secret torturers, their old fears, their guilt and sadness also arrive usually with little more than their courage in their pockets. Yet, it is that very courage within them that gets them through as they accept help.

         So just maybe the bottom line for any type of independence is the very, very, very first freedom of all, courage.  So to all those courageous people throughout history, to all those who have fought for their emotional freedom for themselves and/or others, Happy Independence Day now and for always.