Reflections on FREEDOM

   Is FREEDOM "just another word for nothing left to lose" -- as Janis Joplin so eloquently and passionately sang way back in 1969?

Click here to listen to this amazing voice and song.
  Me and Bobby McGee         

Janis Joplin

**The following is the reflection that  showed up for me at the Toronto Writers Collective this past Sunday May 7 after being given the prompt of a poem entitled "God's Vagabond". After the prompt, we were given 10 minutes to write and this, pretty much word for word, is what flowed out of my pen.


Is there a way to wander freely on this planet without succumbing to the agony of loneliness? Without feeling completely lost and disconnected? Is there a way to free ourselves from the ties that bind us -- to family, to society, to jobs or careers, to those who appear to have power over us? Or are we simply deluding ourselves thinking that we can be free spirits in a world that has so many rules and regulations and expectations and obligations?




So many questions. Such a confusing concept. From what I understand, human beings are social creatures. We seem to have a need to be part of a "flock". But at the same time, it seems like that "flock mentality" can be crushing and destructive to the Individual Soul.  Doesn't the human Soul or Spirit need to be free to create and explore and experience? Doesn't our natural curiosity (if it has not been dulled by those "in power") require that we step outside the box and see what's there? Indeed, we have seen how that "flock mentality" can destroy countries or, more accurately maybe, how it can elect leaders that will then use the power bestowed on them by "the flock" to destroy their country, maybe even the planet itself. Especially when that "flock" follows the wrong shepherd. (We are seeing this unfortunate situation playing itself out right now in United States.)

**A little humorous aside here -- check out this huge herd of cattle following the "wrong" leader. A little beaver is leading this entire herd of cattle!!! 

Click on the following link to see the video -- Beaver Herding Cattle


Sometimes I feel like I have spent my entire adult life trying to extricate myself from the untruths and damaging judgments and expectations of the "flock mentality" that I grew up with. But in trying to extricate myself from the flock, I found it amazingly tempting to look for, maybe even fall into, another flock. Loneliness, feelings of isolation, need for companionship, can cause us to fall back into the same flock mentality trap that we may have tried so hard to escape. Until one realizes that just because another flock has ideas and beliefs that are different from the ones we grew up with -- it is still a flock mentality.

So the question remains -- do we follow the flock and make sure our very human needs for connection and companionship are fulfilled? Or do we courageously step out of the flock, out of the box, and satisfy our Soul's longing to be free and unique and creative?

Ahhhh -- the human conundrum!!