Anger is always the enemy, the deadly force that you must hide or tether to piety like a runaway horse. Hot flaming anger burns through your body like blazing coals. Seething rolling anger bubbles below the surface like a geyser of sulphurous hurt and frustration. But anger also signals that a boundary has been crossed, that some action or cutting word has landed too close to the soft vulnerable part of you. Anger keeps you safe, pushes people back when you feel their probing love approach the stinging tears from your past that you try to bury alive. Anger hisses and spits when you would rather be left alone, inert, like stone, immobile in a life of comfort and predictable routine.
Anger came for me like an eager warrior goddess, kicking up dust on red sandy soil. She stands poised looking out over the canyon, alert and watching for the stirring of movement. I was scared of her at first. Thought she was here to cause trouble, to lead me astray into brawls and cat fights, spitting at strangers, and pulling their hair. But she stands, back straight, still but active, turned away from me as if she is my guardian on duty. I don't know what to do with her yet. I watch her when she's busy. See her hands and bare feet moulding the earth, her lips moving to some incantation that I cannot hear. Sometimes she's in the valley, manipulating green leaves and cool waters, rousing the elements into life. She's beautiful and strong, and I'm afraid of her still. Afraid of the creation happening at her fingertips.
Surely anger is wrong. Anger is destructive. Too fierce and consuming to be let loose uncontrolled. I thought anger needed to be held back, like a snarling predator straining at the leash. I don't want to hurt anybody, least of all myself. And yet, anger is here in me and it feels like being alive. Like life unbridled, alchemy in action, transformation in flow. Anger represents stifled energy, hungry digestion, bright intelligence, and fizzing creativity. It explodes from unkind words and actions left unchallenged. Rises up from an overwhelmed body and tired mind seeking rest and respite from the demands of the world. Anger comes from denied expression, thoughts and feelings caught and caged at the moment they try to emerge and take flight. My anger has come to teach me these things. She has come to open me up to life and to show me that I don't need to be afraid, because she has survived all these things and worse.
There will come a time when I do not apologise for my anger. When I am not ashamed of my power, of my strength, of my prowess, and my determination. I will stand sure, stand firm, and stand proud. For there is a fiery thread that runs through the line of elders and ancestors gathered behind me. That weaves its way through the assemblage of sons and daughters stretching out before me. Where the energy of fire meets water, matter is created, and through the manipulation of matter, we come to know Life. This melding and blending is happening deep within my cells, in my DNA, and in my soul. There will come a time when I am brave enough to stand with my heart wide open and let all things pass through me. Where the knowing and assuredness of life flexes and contracts through the very sinews and muscles of my body. There is nothing I cannot do, nothing I cannot create. And my anger has come to teach me these things - that I cannot be diminished, that I cannot be repressed, because I Am the creator of my life.