July 3 2010, Rose Diamond
Woods and I were having a conversation this morning over breakfast as we relaxed into the blessedly cooler weather. We’ve been steaming for weeks here in Virginia, blaming it on global warming. We were using big words like Hope, Faith, Trust and Commitment as we explored our perceptions of current collective reality here in the States. Woods is a counter-cultural American and I’m a new cultural global citizen, and we were attempting to come to terms with the puncturing of the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico and what this portends for humanity. Surely, along with the failing economy, this has to herald the end of Imperial America; the end of a phase of human civilization, or uncivilization, depending on where you’re standing. As an American Woods is well aware that voicing such perceptions out loud is political heresy, and as an American he is very despondent about the way events are unfolding in his country.
Throughout history, humans have witnessed countless apocalypses. What was it like for people when the Ice Ages arrived , or when Atlantis, Lemuria or Gondwanaland sank beneath the waves? Or when the great Chinese dynasty collapsed, or the Greek and Roman civilizations waned in power? Closer to home the 20th Century was one of the most barbaric ever. Last year, whilst visiting in my native England I watched TV documentaries about the Second World War “blitz” when night after night and week after week thousands of megatons of bombs fell on cities like Coventry and London. Civilians ran for shelter below ground and hunkered down together waiting to see if they still had a home, a street, a city, a life, when the bombing stopped. What struck me as I watched was how the barbarity of the war and the resilience of the human spirit lived side by side, how we humans thrive on drama, and how intrinsic to life is the determination to survive.
What would our world be like if we were able to move beyond the drama of good guys and bad guys and transcend duality?
What is an appropriate stance to take in response to the destruction of the natural world and the obliteration of cultures; to the continuance of unjust imperial wars and widening social inequality? If we really open our hearts to it all, how do we live with the pain of it? What do we do with our fear, rage and grief? If we don’t express these feelings where do they go? And if we do express them what further havoc do we release into the world? Isn’t it easier to numb and dumb ourselves and live in denial as the docile wage slaves who keep the unjust system going?
Let’s take a breath! These are hefty considerations.
I see a Libran figure balancing the scales of justice. If we put all the horror and suffering into one side of the scale, what is on the other side balancing it and keeping the world turning despite it all?
Well there’s the resilience of the human spirit I spoke of earlier, and there’s the new evolutionary consciousness, and the collective enlightenment through the ages, There’s faith in the goodness and natural justice of the cosmos. I have carried this like a candle flame in my heart. Is this hope?
The great spiritual teacher, Krishnamurti, said hope doesn’t serve us. What serves us and our evolution is facing reality and then using what we see and know to motivate right action. Which is action on behalf of the whole and on behalf of what is life giving and life renewing.
I tend to agree with him. This is what I notice in myself. Sometimes fear comes. I experience it as a wave, a contraction in my torso and I know I have a choice in this moment. I can choose to go with the fear and spiral down into what ifs. Or I can choose to recognize that I don’t know and when I do this I move into a bigger, freer space.
I don’t know. There are forces at play much bigger than me. We inhabit a cosmic mystery.
What if in this boundless mystery I do make a difference? What if my thoughts make a difference? And my emotional state makes a difference? And my actions make a difference. What if I am one cell in a bigger organism and whatever I am experiencing is immediately communicated to every other cell in the whole body? What if this is the way collective consciousness works? Certainly, it’s easy to see the truth of this in my immediate environment. When I’m peaceful and contented everything flows better, when I’m oozing with resentment the energy is palpable and offensive to others. Have you noticed how, when you’re with someone with a big energy, you relax and expand and when someone’s feeling mean and petty you contract and move away?
By choosing to stay peaceful and contented amidst the unknown and the chaos of the world, I am choosing to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. The more I make this choice, the more I am in a state of equilibrium, no longer caught in the drama of good and bad, no longer attached to outcomes, but here in this moment.
And in this moment I can take an inspired action. I can create something new from a place of peace and love. This is empowering. And if the ship goes down, at least I’ll know I did what I could and I stayed true to myself. This is something.
Photo by Braveheart
