Identity politics and the embodiment of unity
Taking position as a human thing
Soon I will be on my way to China for an ancestral spiritual pilgrimage. As I started planning this trip, I met many people in parallel explorations – diving into lineage, researching heritage, reclaiming craft or tradition. I don’t think this is coincidence. As unity consciousness starts to pervade the collective, we also feel inspired to look into what makes us different.
The cultural flattening of copy-paste capitalism somehow rings false and unsatisfying. At the same time, the separation game powered by identity politics has become (yaaawn) sooo boring.
We are caught at the intersection of polarities – safety in beige-y sameness of global monoculture versus power-hungry group domination. One driven by fear. The other driven by control. Neither one seems terribly appealing. When we opt out of these distorted old games, we can become transmitters of unity consciousness in-a-body, without disowning individual perspective.
I am referring to a balance point that we can never reach, but we can pass through it repeatedly on the path of constant re-adjustment. As humans, we inhabit a specific body-time-place-position. But with consciousness, we can also surf reality with a remembrance of experience emanating from somewhere beyond these limitations. Oneness and uniqueness, dancing in co-existence. Living in harmony, without eliminating differences.
Of course, that all sounds nice in theory. But what if we live in a reality where opposition is served up as nightly entertainment, and separation has been weaponized to subdue the general population?
Do you feel desensitized by the dramatic tension playing out on television? Are you burnt out by the routine of pitting one identity against another? This is unnatural, and we are all exhausted from it whether we realize it or not. Our nervous systems have been on electric shock therapy, and our circuits are withered and frayed.
It doesn’t matter whether the lines are drawn by gender, nationality, economics, ideology or religion. The basic template for the narrative is the same: this group versus that group. These people are the ones causing all of our problems. If only we could delete, deport, destroy or disenfranchise this group, then everything would be great.
We have seen it so many times. Now we cannot unsee the props holding up the show. We can no longer pretend it’s an original screenplay. It’s a story we’ve heard read to us one too many times. It has lost its power – it no longer captures us our attention.
What is the antidote to a system that feeds off our dysregulation? First, we have to unplug ourselves from the distraction-extraction machine. To stop being the food consumed by this machine, we have to stop consuming what we are being fed. Then we pour our energy into participation – into creating a new reality from an entirely different frequency.
Here’s the paradox: we are part of a broader divine design that we can never see or understand; and, we are powerful creators of our own reality. If we live only in the mind, it’s easy to detach from what happening within our domain of influence and authority. It’s easy to hide from our embodied power and abdicate incarnate responsibility.
When we refuse to take an action, that is a choice. When we decline to speak up, that is a choice. When we delay making a decision, that is a choice. Every non-action is an action that supports established momentum.
Silence is tacit agreement with the status quo. Doing nothing is not neutral — it is default approval of the installed program. Not rocking the boat is support for the established system. It is one thing if we are not aware. But if we see but we don’t speak, if we know but we don’t move, then we are completely complicit in the perpetuation of pre-existing conditions.
We have to learn to take up space; to stand in our position. But we have to do it differently than the way we have been doing it before now.
Taking position is not a political thing. Taking position is a human thing, if we are honest. Position cannot be skipped; it can only be hidden or twisted. We cannot erase position. We can only edit our position to fit what we think is acceptable, or what we think will win favor.
Diluting the realness of perspective is not neutrality. Suppressing the truth of preference is not spirituality. That refusal to participate in taking position is a subtle withdrawal from life. It is sitting on the sidelines because we fear our own power – and that is tangled with fear of the power that we think others have over us.
Painting ourselves as position-less is classic spiritual bypass. It is a bypass borne from fear of full engagement in the human experience.
Unfortunately, we don’t see many positive role models for this in the public arena. Modern politicians don’t take positions based on values – they take the position that is convenient in the moment. Positions are rarely grounded in truth. They are performed for the cameras. No core. No conscience. No compass. So, they make whatever declaration will stir up the media. They sign whatever executive order will bring in corporate sponsors.
But not all positions are created from the same level of consciousness. The world needs more of us to take positions founded on core values. To stand rooted in integrity. To speak in resonance with inner coherence.
The easy positions activate a strong charge because they focus energy on something to fight against. The object is external. The standard approach is to fix. The harder positions point to something within. The work is internal and often quiet. The challenge is to stay steady in listening to that inner voice of truth, no matter what the consequences.
Leading is not about holding title or role or authority. Leadership is going first, willingly exposing ego to the dangers of the unknown. It requires us to risk being unpopular because it knows this is the cost of expanding into new territory. The existential dread that stems from uncertainty is a toll crossing; a fee we must pay as leaders of a New Earth reality.
Spirituality can be helpful as a reminder here that “they” are also “us” and “we” are also “them.” We change the world by refusing positions that are defined by being against this or that group. We are probably better served by exiting the worldview that organizes itself in terms of groups entirely. This kind of thinking keeps us running in circles, chasing our tail.
To stop looping, we have to stop taking positions for and against groups. We no longer take position based on identity. We take a stand for values instead: values that serve humanity, the planet, and life as we know it.