Pressure Cooker

The heat is on, on the street. Inside your head, on every beat. And the beat’s so loud, deep inside. The pressure’s high, just to stay alive. ‘Cause the heat is on.

Glenn Fry

You’re cookin’.  Hot off the broil. Your under-the-collar is steamy and your body’s flashing fiery.

You can’t stand the heat, but you’re captive to the kitchen.

Ripping off your sweater, bolting like a crazy to fling open the windows and a door.

You’re drippin’ with sweat – feel like you’re suffocating. Ready to blow. Just a scant degree off your boiling point.

You need relief and you want it right now.

But you take a step back.

You hang tight. Mute. Immobile. Not a shiver to the left or to the right.

You inhale one deep breath. Then another. Slowly, silently, in and out. In and out. The rhythm of that easing flow takes you over. Calms you. Talks you down.   

Your steam-heat whistles as it updrafts through the escape valve. Finally, sweet release.

Set free from the high-pitched cyclone of collective energies that had swept you up.

You’d assumed that it was your personal meltdown — not realizing the extent of collective persuasion.

These are a-changin’ times. Foretold over millennia. And here we are. Knee deep in the waters of a rising tide.

Our Gaian family, all tossed about in the massive upswell of an inescapable, transformative tidal wave. Riding the crest, as we are able.

Yes, we were told about interconnectedness – that we are all One. And the wise ones who enlightened us were not just spinning metaphors.

So take heart, sisters and brothers. This is not just your private movie. You’re enacting your role on a much larger screen.  

Your existence is unfolding as a unique, irreplaceable contribution to the whole.

Your script crafted, not for you to blame and shame yourself for every little thing you’ve ‘done wrong’.

But rather, to offer an invitation that is your birthright – to bathe in Life’s warm, merciful springs of compassion and unconditional love. Merely for the honor of having you here in physical form.

Your pains and your gains – all precious gifts.

When adversity erupts, we do our best to ferry ourselves to the other side of safety.

As I did myself, when I was a teen. Running-rapid-wildness through rolling, green hills. Shaking off the feral anxieties that had overwhelmed me.

We do what we need to do.

Each act, a sacred gesture of transmutation and release. For ourselves, for our ancestors, for the collective humanity and all Life.

We are all the leaves of one tree. We are all the waves of one sea.

Thich Nhat Hanh