On Loving Anger

MyScream

Scream By Mara Lee Gilbert

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I’ve heard in spiritual settings that when you are angry you are cutting yourself off from the Divine. Like a black cloud, you cannot see through to the light that is shining for your enjoyment and joyful experience of life. Don’t be angry, there’s no room for anger, release your anger…
I DISAGREE…up until the release part. It’s a well intentioned teaching, but somehow misses the fact that anger is necessary or we wouldn’t be feeling it! If the mantras Sat Chit Ananda (Life is pure bliss consciousness), Sahas Rara Eem (I Am Pure Awareness) and Humee Hum Tumee Tum Wahe Guru (I am Thine, in Mine, Myself, to Infinity! or I am my own Guru) are true, than all experiences are Divine experiences, including anger. I think we can all agree that nothing can incite change like anger. I think we must look to the divine message our anger offers us! It is our christ self or divine truth pushing up against our ego so that we may learn something and grow! What is the anger pointing to within ourselves that needs attention? That wants release? That is no longer serving us? Our deepest rage comes from our deepest love for ourself, I believe. So let us feel the rage because we are feeling love. But there is work involved – working with the anger to incite change for our own betterment, our own Evolution of Self* and Consciousness, rather than ripping the world apart. Turning inward and owning all parts of our beautiful human story* in love and acceptance.
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Below is a poem in honor of my rage (some of it at least). More appropriately – it is dated for Valentine’s Day (2013). Goddess knows I was loving myself that day. I found it in my old notebook from that time and continued to work on it. It’s not actually finished, I don’t think. It will keep going and going and going for all eternity. There’s definitely more to say. I think it takes lifetimes to recognize what our souls are trying to say. I don’t know why. But I am pretty sure this poem will morph again with time, as I recognize more and more and more Who Am I?:
(* For resources on Anger, see below after the poem)
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I Write
I write 
because I can
I want to 
it feels good
I need to
I’ve been scared of myself
because of the anger that shows up
like a flash flood
or a wham wave
BAM – I’m in it –
it seethes
pounding my edges.
I can barely
not explode
fists clenched 
breathing hard 
eyes all akimbo 
walking crazy like and
people move away;
angry homeless people 
stop ranting to stare 
back at me unsure,
suddenly still, and
what can I do?
What can I do? and
AH! and
AHHH!
in the subway.
I write 
because I almost pushed somebody
onto the tracks to get
rid of my anger.
I write
because the crying baby at
the back of the bus made me
wanna smash his brains 
into the floor and
watch them ooze, joyful
in the silence.
I write
because I felt I know why serial killers kill.
I write
because I dreamed I blew up a building,
killed people and
was only concerned I might get caught.
I write 
because I couldn’t
speak or write in my dreams.
I write
for the time I held a knife over my wrist
to see if someone would notice and
got tired of waiting.
I write 
for the time I only got 
to hear my parents say goodbye.
I write
for my bald, cancerous, twelve year old self.
For the time six nurses held me down and
shoved too many needles in
both of my arms.
For that they kept going
even as I screamed and
screamed.
For Diana who died on the day 
of my thirteenth birthday party.
For that she told me she was dead
in a dream
the night before and
I had asked her what death was like.
For that she said it was only different.
For the days spent 
staring at the TV loathing
my inactivity.
For that I could not realize
I was being not alive.
For that I did realize
but stayed there.
For my fear.
My fear to speak.
My fear to dream
because it was too painful
in my chest when I tried
to breathe in my reality. 
Suffocating nights. 
No breath.
Dreams awaiting in the dense dark.
My fear of the word Future.
My fear of the word Now.
My despair at the word Past.
My belief that beauty was but
a beautiful idea.
For all
my confused rage at why?
God, not existing, and
Why I could not be
who I would claw up the Earth to be.
But I am not clawing up the Earth.
Useless hands that could be claws
but I’ve failed them.
Buried them in the basement
not to face them.
Neglected them.
They starved and died under my unwatch. 
Oh so many
beautiful alive brilliant joyful things 
I have let
starve and die, forgotten, diminished, raging,
and then sad sad sad, crumbled, destroyed
under my unwatch.
Loving was too much.
I am incapable. 
I write 
for when I realized that was me.
That I only had to claw up myself.
That a tingle in my baby toe
means alive.
That the snarling wolf in the lower
left chamber of my heart
was only trying 
to get my attention.
To show me 
the near dead child 
in a dark pit
I had forgotten
like the rabbits I was always suffocating
in my dreams.
I can choose hands or claws. 
I want them both.
I write
because I only wanted 
to love myself.
I write
Now
because I do.
Not to forget that I do.
To continue.
I write
to leave a trail of scorched
clawed up Earth behind me
that takes my breath away. 
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A few Anger Resources (although you can Google “The Power of Anger” and find many more):
1. On masculine and feminine coming into balance through the rage of the Radical Feminine as embodied by the Mythical Eris: 
“Eris doesn’t fit neatly into a spiritual narrative that says we’re all love and light and rage has no place in the awakened heart. She tells us everything has a place, otherwise it isn’t awakened, for awakening knows all things intimately. It doesn’t pick and choose.”
By Sarah Varcas (SourceERIS: The Radical Feminine Awakens
2. On what is underneath our anger. If we can seek to understand and accept this, anger can be very useful for our own spiritual growth or evolution of self: 
“Without the boldness (or backbone) to let your vulnerability be known, you’re driven to utilize anger to prevent others from discovering the “soft underbelly” hiding just beneath your bluster.”
3. On Anger as a source of Healing:
“Rather than releasing it in quick outbursts, my rage would seethe out in ugly bits of passive aggressiveness. But now that my relationship with anger had shifted, I could see that these fierce emotions were a beautiful part of the human story, especially if they weren’’t repressed, or expressed in inappropriate ways that hurt others.  Anger itself was a sharp, cleansing current that other emotions hitched a ride on when released.  It took a great deal of energy to keep this powerful force at bay.  So, for the first time since I was very young, I allowed myself to get angry here and there instead of cutting off these experiences before they arose.  I came to know my anger as a graceful wave, one that would roll over and then pass, but always making me feel more connected and loving afterward.”
By Jonathan Talat Phillips (Source: Reality Sandwich – The Healing Power of Anger)
4. Mama Gena, founder of the School of Womanly Arts, believes when we accept our rage for what it is, exactly where it’s at, and let it express itself in full-on tantrum mode (in a safe place) we can transform it into tremendous power for Good. Many women who use her methods feel profound transformation in their lives. Read more about her and her work, here: Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts.

5 Comments on “On Loving Anger

  1. this is so incredible and well said. it gives me inspiration that when I feel angry, it’s not because I’m going something wrong or need to get things under control or behave differently…but that Im in a honest response to the world around me

  2. I need to to thank you for this fantastic read!!
    I definitely loved every bit of it. I have you book marked to look at new stuff you

    1. Thank you Frank! I am working on a new post now! Will look forward to your thoughts!

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