land sharks

PHOTO BY (THE BRILLIANT) OLGA BARANTSEVA HTTPS://BIT.LY/36OZJUE

Monsters, of one kind or another, are common in dreams. And there’s all this stuff in history, mythology, and psychology about monsters and demons and the courageous heroes who fight them. But I don’t think fighting monsters is all that courageous. I think the ultimate act of courage is standing still in the face of a monster. Courage is looking closely enough into its jaws to see it for what it is: an illusion. The monster isn’t real. It’s your fear of the monster that is real. And just about anything in life can look like a monster if the light is just right.
 
-Thomas Lloyd Qualls
Painted Oxen

The above quote is hopefully more than just self-referential indulgence. Over the arc of my life, monsters have taken on any number of forms. As a child they sometimes came in the form of school, or bullies, or food I was irrationally afraid of, or maybe tornados (I grew up in Oklahoma), and sometimes, actual monsters -- or at least scary people -- in my dreams.

As I grew, monsters sometimes took the shape of tests, after-school jobs, the police (I was a reckless teen), or any obstacle to getting a girlfriend. In adulthood, my monsters have shape-shifted into things like debt, the IRS, deadlines, prosecutors, the surreal world of the courtroom, child-raising, and the occasional blank page where words ought to have made their way by now.

And through all this time, through all these monsters, those words I was able to channel to the electronic page in what became the novel Painted Oxen have always been true: The monster isn’t real. It’s your fear of the monster that is real. The way to deal with dream monsters is to turn and look them in the face. To ask with curiosity, Tell me why are you here? What is the message you are supposed to give me?

PHOTO BY (THE BRILLIANT) OLGA BARANTSEVA HTTPS://BIT.LY/36OZJUE

Now, that is not to say that I’m going to book a fishing boat and go jump into the water with some sharks. But neither am I going to jump out of a plane without a parachute. Or climb a mountain in a storm. Or even pick up a spider from my bathroom without a glass and a postcard. That is because sharks, planes, mountains, and spiders all deserve their due respect when dealing with them. But respect does not mean the same thing as fear. Respect also includes curiosity. Why are you here? What role do you have in this grand play?

We fear what we don’t understand. This includes nature, as well as other people. It seems these days that more people regard nature as something dangerous --to be tamed and harnessed at all cost -- than they do something that nourishes and sustains us. Likewise, modern society has turned more towards controlling the growing numbers of people in society than to building harmonious and sustainable communities.

I think the take home is that we would be well served to love everything (and everyone) in the world. At least that is what the masters teach us. Mother Earth has spent literally billions of years creating the mind-blowingly complex and interconnected ecosystem where we live. If something were not meant to be here, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t. That doesn’t mean we need to put an arm into the yellow jacket nest. But it does mean that pollinators of all kinds are likely essential to life on this whirling ball of rock and water.

PHOTO BY (THE BRILLIANT) OLGA BARANTSEVA HTTPS://BIT.LY/36OZJUE

Also, many of our fears are unfounded. The black widow spider only kills around 7 Americans a year. And bears, alligators, and mountain lions? Only one person a year. And sharks? There’s only about one fatality every two years. Studies also show that most predators, from badgers to mountain lions, are probably more afraid of us, and will change their daily activities, including their feeding habits, just to avoid humans, sometimes altering their whole ecosystem in the process.

This story of fear is just one of many we have invented, but continue to shape our lives around. We write these make-believe stories on the chalkboards of our minds -- and refer to them regularly -- without ever fact-checking their accuracy. In the meantime, we lock ourselves away from imaginary dangers and miss out on great swaths of life we could be enjoying. When we could be questioning (and erasing) those stories, and turning our attention towards finding beauty in life, instead. Which is far more important.
​
Let’s make a pact together that we will do this more and more each day, question our fears, and turn our eyes towards exploration, towards our own daily beauty safaris. And keep doing it until it becomes second nature. Until we have rewritten all the old stories that no longer serve us.