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The Knife of Fear Turned into the Balm of Light
By wisdom | April 15, 2011
“They’ll rip your head off for that!”
Those are the words the supermarket cashier shocked me with as she gazed longingly at my necklace. She was a middle-aged black woman, herself bedecked with a substantial gold choker, and her eyes could barely lift up from my neck as we engaged in a little conversation afterwards. “That’s what they said to me when I wore my good stuff…” were her next words.
My necklace, a large showy affair of gold and diamonds forming a star with crescent moons, always held a different connotation to me because it was a design I had made from my mother’s ring. Therefore, it represented not only my chosen career path (astrology) but my mother’s love and generosity. I usually get lots of compliments on it. But now, through her eyes, it had become an object of such greed that one could get whacked for it!
For a nanosecond, I was taken aback as my mind processed this state of affairs. I could, I realized, react negatively and glare at her, or make a cutting remark, or otherwise “protect my boundaries”. I could button up my coat collar. I could, in other words, cement the fear-laden thoughtform. Instead, another train began…
“Oh,” I said, “I had it designed from my mother’s stones. Do you like it? I can tell that you’re a real jewelry person.”
Boy, did that open up the valve! She launched into a long story about how her grandmother always put “the real stuff” on them as kids so that they’d get to know the good items from the junk. She told me about her sister who wears bracelets up and down one arm, even taking them off every night and reattaching them every morning. She mused about what a good idea it would be to have her old jewelry melted down and redesigned since she knew a good jeweler. She went on and on, her eyes still never leaving my neck but now more in appreciation than envy.
The fear was long gone, and hopefully in her too. Whoever had given her that horrible statement had planted a deeply embedded fear that had taken root years ago and was so entrenched that it was the first thing that had popped out of her mouth at a perfect stranger. She had been living in fear that gold, instead of being something radiant and lovely, was life-threatening!
I smiled warmly at her. I told her that now she might be blessed to get a wonderful piece of jewelry herself. (Yes, because her heart was already turning… no mean feat!) We said a few more warm words to each other as I left the store with my bundles.
And hopefully, a little drop more of light entered both our worlds that day.
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Topics: Thoughts on Level 2 | 2 Comments »
November 27th, 2011 at 9:10 pm
I tried to submit a comment earlier, although it has not shown up. I will remember this.
December 30th, 2011 at 9:42 am
Very nice style and fantastic subject material , absolutely nothing else we need : D.