Lisa Hart (trigger warning: reference to racial violence)
In my 40s I grappled with my rising prejudices. It doesn’t matter what they were, we all have them. I marveled to myself that as I got older it was harder and harder not to have them. I was so tolerant and nonjudgemental of groups and individuals in my younger years. Time, experiences and social conditionings did their work and I found myself really struggling with the hardening of my opinions about certain ‘others’. I felt a deep sense of loss for that younger me, with her open, unbiased approach to life. I didn’t want to have prejudices. But I had them, and it was getting harder to be the change I wanted to see in the World.
Around this time, as will happen, I came across an interview of James Earl Jones talking about hate and prejudice and how he worked with it. The original interview, by BBC Hardtalk, is from 2011. The article I read was based off of this interview. I highly recommend listening to the original video. Not only does the voice of Mr Jones embody deep nourishment and considered, grounded, emotional presence, but so does Mr. Jones himself.
What I will be sharing is my memory of this interview and how it touched my life. I take full responsibility for any discrepancies in my memory. Please go to the source for fact checking.
In this interview, Mr Jones spoke about growing up in the Deep South and of having a grandmother whom he called ‘the most racist person I ever knew’. Mr. Jones grew up in Mississippi in the 1930s and 40s. His grandmother would have known the deepest cruelty of racism and prejudice. Her parents may well have experienced slavery. Definitely, her grandparents did. As I remember, she called Whites ‘White Devils’ and truly believed that they were. I have the deepest empathy for her feelings and experiences. ‘Strange Fruit’ was an all-to-real and normalized horror that many experienced on a regular basis at that time. Strange Fruit is the title of a poem about lynching by Abel Meeropol published in 1937.
However, Mr Jones had experiences of Whites that didn’t jive with all of us being Devils and it seems clear to me that he didn’t want to hate. His discomfort around this and his understanding of his grandmother, as well as, I believe, his own deep well of self awareness and compassion, led him to an exercise he would do where he would try on feeling hate and then take it off. I wonder if he learned this from acting classes or did he just come upon it instinctively? It sounds a lot like an acting exercise to me.
I was deeply moved by this way to relate to hate and prejudice. How does it feel? How does it feel to release it?
I worked with this exercise in emotional intelligence and choice for many years and, for some unfathomable reason, in the Fall of 2020 I had this numinal experience:
I was between waking and sleeping in the early hours, as happens, and I dream-thought that I would practice going back and forth between hate and love. I had done this before in waking life and I wanted to explore it further. I started with hate and in this instance I had a full body, gestalt feeling of every muscle in my body being contracted and crunched down in this painful, constricted way. I felt horrible. My vision was narrowed as if by blinders and I felt mean and small. It was hard to breathe and movement was impossible as my body was bent over and rigid. I then moved over mentally, but with a sense of physicality, to ‘try on’ love and I found myself floating in a wide river of warm acceptance. The temperature of the water was so perfect that I could not tell where my skin ended or the water began. I was utterly relaxed and calm. A presence to my right had an energy of deep care and forgiveness; the kind of forgiveness we have no word for, that means there was no judgement in the first place. There were other Helper Beings near by. The river flowed on, growing in expansiveness and length. Far down stream I could see and feel that its width widened off, up and out into an ethereal expanse with offshoots of choice into endless possibilities. All was available in warm, kind, loving and gentle openness. I felt complete relaxation and ease. I felt so good that I had NO desire to go back to ‘putting on hate’. I wanted to stay in this space forever.
These words express only the smallest fraction of the full body relaxation and peace I felt in this state of consciousness. There were no limits, no judgement and no hurry or demands. I could float where I was or go down the river as I chose. The feeling of peace and awe stayed with me for a long time.
I feel so grateful for this incredible gift of the Divine. I have read enough about states of consciousness and striving to recapture them to know better than to chase this full body feeling. I still meditate on the wonder and joy of the experience but I do not seek to make it come back. My memory and my gratitude are enough. I share this experience with you both to honor James Earl Jones and what he taught me about hate and compassionate self-acceptance as well as to offer this practice and this gift to any who may be called to explore it.
I know from reading and studying mystics, poets, spiritual guides and teachers that this state of being is available to us all at any moment. I feel extremely blessed to have experienced it once.
Love feels better than hate. Love works better than hate. Hate confines us to the tiniest of options. Love opens us to infinite possibilities. When we feel hate or anger or blame we can remember that it is a state of being. It’s message is valid, it’s indulgence is not. Coming from the state of Love does allow abuse or harm of any kind; not to self or other. That is not Love.
To the practical souls out there, choose Love, it makes more sense. To those who feel tight and constricted and in pain, may you be embraced by the River of Love and held in it’s indescribably compassionate and welcoming buoyancy. May you know complete relaxation of every cell in your being as you float in endless possibilities with only the warmth of acceptance and care surrounding you.
Thank you, Mr. Jones.
Recommended listening: Water of Love by Dire Straits
Image Credit: dramaleague.org
