Anger and the Soul

I bought a sweatshirt that says: Pretending to be pleasant all day exhausts me. I collect sweatshirts with "sayings" on them and I buy them intuitively. I had, for example, no idea that I was "pretending to be pleasant" until I saw that sweatshirt. I wore it for two days and during that time, not surprisingly, I discovered how angry I am.

How is it that a person who purports to be spiritual (maybe the sweatshirt should say: Pretending to be spiritually enlightened all day . . . )can find herself filled with mind-numbing, gut-wrenching, shrieking rage? If we are spiritual beings in a physical world as some would opine, then it's hopeless to pretend that we can escape any of the trappings of this world replete with unrequited passion, career failures, bodily weaknesses, financial blunders, crime and compassion. And, yes, anger.

As much as we like to equate intelligence with spirit, we can't negate that it's soul more than spirit that bridges the chasm between the aforementioned physical being and the spiritual world. Soul is a messy thing. It's full of preludes and punk, sweat and sweetness, birth and murder.

So, I feel anger and now I know it. It's bad enough to feel anger but what if it's at the person who, or so you thought, most loved you, the one who kept you from failure-to-thrive syndrome, your "good" parent. In my case, my dad.

My dad died several years ago by his own choice. He chose to stop eating and he wasted away. At the time, it seemed a perfectly reasonable decision for an old man to make and I did nothing to oppose his choice. Why, then, am I suddenly (aging myself) furious with him?

I don't know the answers, just the question at this point. I know I HATE the way he died. I hate that he chose to leave before his time. I hate that he left me when he didn't have to. That's a lot of hate towards the man I adored all my life.

I don't understand exactly what's happening but I do know that I've been catapulted into some serious sacred shit. Soul work stretches out ahead of me like a dark, ancient road. If you, my fellow travelers, have any road maps or lights to illuminate the next leg of my journey, please share in the comments section. Blessings, Roxie