A Way Out of the Bucket

A Way Out of the Bucket

This morning I was thinking about our current world situation and how the separation being created is causing people to choose sides. For or against. Right or wrong. Being led to believe there is only one right choice. This is a powerful patriarchal pattern that is being expressed to gain control over people and to generate conformity. It is a pattern that is rooted in fear and has been lived out repeatedly over thousands of years. It brought to mind a story I have heard many times and how relevant it is to what is happening now. 

Photo Credit Mark Stebnicki

There was a man walking along a beach and he came upon a fisherman with bucket of crabs. He said to the fisherman, "you had better put a cover on the bucket or the crabs will get out." "Well no," said the wise fisherman. "There is no need for that. You see, as one crab crawls up the side of the bucket, the other crabs reach up, grab him and pull him back down. So, there is no need for a cover.”

The people who are viewing the world situation differently than the masses may choose to not conform. Some who have a different view will yield under pressure, some are forced to comply and others stand in their truth and say no to conformity and escape the bucket. In the patriarch, there is always a cost to be outside the bucket. In the patriarch, you must either be for or against. If you are against then you are a liability.  The patriarch counts on the tribe keeping everyone in line with the tribal thinking, just as the crabs pull the one climbing out of the bucket back in. When too many climb out of the bucket then the rules become more rigid and the tribe activates to bring the wayward thinkers back into line.

Going against the patriarch includes being different in any way than what is deemed acceptable by those in power. We can look back in history and see how the need to have power over, to be in control and to be superior has been lived out over and over in many expressions. It is mastered by dividing and conquering, and then when the divisions have been made and you know who is for and who is against then it is time to get rid of the problem — the ones seen as being against. In this pattern, the majority agrees that those who are different are the problem and take the side of the powers that be. The witch trials and the holocaust are a couple of well-known examples but this pattern has been lived out globally. The world can now see that Canada, the country that has a reputation as being a peace keeping country with “nice” citizens has been no different, as the truth of the treatment of the indigenous children in 20th century residential schools is coming to light.

My question is, what will it be this time? What will those choosing not to conform experience? They may not be stoned, burned at the stake or gassed, tortured or starved but it will be something equally as horrific unless we choose to break this pattern. I see this as a choice point. How far can we go before there is no return from this path of destruction. The power-over pattern, like all patterns, is energy.  It will continue to get stronger until we stop feeding it. This particular pattern dines on fear. When people say, “we are all in this together”, there is so much truth in that statement. We are either in it, being driven by fear and strengthening the power-over pattern or we are expanding and growing our consciousness with love as the guiding energy. The latter requires climbing out of the bucket. It doesn’t matter what choices you have made. When we serve love, we respect others who made the choice that was right for them, just as you made the choice that was right for you.  When we serve love we serve oneness versus separation. This is how we climb out of the bucket. We choose to release from separation — the for or against mentality — and accept there is space for all choices, not just ours. 

I have chosen to climb out of the bucket and serve love. I see this as a time of transition and I am willing to take the risk. The ego fears loss. The only thing I will lose is my ego attachment to the fear and the separation. That loss brings me joy as it frees me to embrace love and experience wholeness . When I face adversity, I ask myself, what would love say? What would love do? I then take the risk and act accordingly. 

How about you? Have you had enough of the bucket? If so, choosing love is a way out. What do you have to lose?