creating – The Voice From The Back Row

Time to Act

2021 has arrived! Holidays and celebrations are over. It’s time to resume working! The important work, however, has changed with the year. This time, our work is not simply to do a job to earn money. It is the work of healing our planet, restoring respectful and nurturing connections among our human species and between humans and the denizens with whom we share our planet and developing a social order supportive of these goals. It is becoming a renewed kind of people, each of us the kind of people with whom we would like to live. It is the work in which each of us has a part, and which without each part, the chances of manifesting lessen. This is the most important work we have ever had. It is time to get started. Time is running out.

There is so much to accomplish – work which takes physical activity, mental effort, emotional processing, spiritual energy. It is easy to hide one’s head in the sand, and pretend that all is well, and our government will do what is best for us and achieve the goal. Opting out in such a way is abandoning the task and increasing the chances that we will all face either destruction, or an outcome we do not wish, possibly even one which negates our humanity. Why? First, the work to be done cannot be accomplished from a top-down stance. Big anything will not be able to get it done. Big politics, big government, big technology, big business, big media, and the like will never, ever create a healed Earth or a healed web of life. The “bigs” create what supports the “bigs”; Big Brother may take care of us, but will also tell us how to be, what to do, how to live, what to think. That is the first reason.

In addition – perhaps this should be first, as it underlies the former – we are each responsible for who we are, how we grow, what we do and how we live. For this, we do not answer to Big Brother or any “big”. We answer to life itself, and to the results we produce for ourselves. If one is religious, we answer to God. Because we are responsible, we also have the power, individually and especially collectively, to affect our goals. In microcosm, if we are adult, we can no longer blame our parents for our ills, because we possess within ourselves the power to right them, if we wish to exercise that power. On a larger scale, we cannot blame the government, the opposite political party, religious organizations, people we think are maliciously trying to control us, people who we perceive as enemies, careless other people, being too young or too old, or anything else for what we dislike. Each time we do that, we are giving away a bit of our power to create harmoniously, to make things right.

We need to heal our Earth, reforest, and renew her. To that end, we also need to, among other things, adjust our economies, our lifestyles and consumption of resources. We need to balance our consumption with our production and our capacity to renew that from which we take. We need to create a social order that assigns equal humanity to each human being on the planet. Note, that does not mean “same”. Each of us is unique. It means that we extend equal value, consideration, and use of resources to each human being, whether they are like us or not. We need to think about giving “rights” to others, not about how to get them. We need to wean ourselves from killing, especially knee-jerk killing, and replace that with respect and love. We need to learn to listen to each other. We need to learn to govern ourselves effectively, without relying on any of the “bigs” to tell us what to do. We need to learn to grow food and medicines respectfully, in ways which replenish the Earth which nurtures us. We need to eliminate war. We need to learn to grow ourselves so that our actions, visions, and responses are rooted in the loving essence from which we all come. We need to learn to express that essence and recognize the oneness between not only us humans but also each expression of life.

That is only the beginning, and already the task is huge. It will take all of us to accomplish, but it is absolutely possible, despite the pull from entropy. We can use our inner vision to project – what would the world look like if we achieve our goal? What would it be like, if it survives at all, if we do not? Here are two easily-read resources to check out: Brave New World combined with Brave New World Revisited, both by Aldous Huxley, and the entire Celestine Prophecy series, by James Redfield. There are others, but those are good starts.

Each of us has his or her own unique talent, his or her own thing that he or she loves or does well. Large or small does not matter. Current standards of pay do not matter. Leading, supporting, or working independently does not matter. Excuses to not act do not actually excuse; they only indicate an unwillingness to participate. Even the bedridden can participate; the power of prayer and vision holding is great. The power of extending love is infinite.

Are you one who cares for the land, who grows food and medicines? Are you one who can use tools and build? Do you do best at designing structures? Can you understand and translate the processes of nature into harmonious human activity? Are you a cook, a teacher, a nurturer? Are you a visual artist, a musician, a storyteller? Are you a philosopher, a priest, one who can perceive the surrounding world most of us find invisible? Are you a healer? Are you an activist? Find your talent and commit to the task. In such a way, 2021 can be the year in which we respond to the challenge to grow, heal, and become.

Remember that top down does not work; top down most often gets in the way. Big anything does not have the power to do anything for us. Each of us is responsible for the outcome; each of us has the power to affect it.
We can choose to give up our power, and declare ourselves helpless, or victims that need rescuing. That sinks us deeper into the quicksand. Each of us needs to listen to the other, and each of us needs to work. Let us be the people who rise to the challenge. Let us choose life. Happy New Year!

Peace, Diane

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Dreaming Our New Reality

The old man sat quietly alert on the rock outcropping near the top of the hill. The dry air, warmed by the late morning sunshine, stirred lazily around him, ruffling his white hair, and caressing his closed eyes. Behind him, at the foot of the hill, the tribe patiently continued daily tasks as if nothing were going on. They were awaiting the old man’s return. Before him spread the expanse of grassland. In the distance, a herd of bison nibbled on the sere grass, vainly searching for a few green blades. None of this caught the attention of the old man. His focus was inward, away from the arid, heat-permeated landscape surrounding him. The old man was sensing rain. Within his trance, he could see the dark clouds approach, feel the damp breeze on his skin, notice the slight drop in temperature, smell the droplets of a deluge, hear distant rumbling thunder. The rains were coming. He KNEW that, knowing in a way that belied the logic of drought surrounding him, of grass waiting like tinder to catch the first spark. The old man had been there since dawn, going ever deeper into his trance, sensing ever more strongly the coming of rain.

Towards sunset, the grazing bison looked up. The breeze had stilled for the moment; dark clouds began to form on the horizon. The bison stopped grazing. They began to circle, calves in the middle for shelter. The old man paid no attention. The dark clouds grew, and the wind began to pick up. Lightning split the sky, and thunder rumbled over the bison. Clouds obscured the setting sun as the storm increased its force, soaking the dried grass and the parched earth. The bison lifted their heads in welcome to the rain. Now the wind blew strong over the old man, who was still sitting quietly. A clap of thunder woke him from his trance. A deluge from the sky washed over him as he stood up and began the walk to the encampment. Dancing children approached him, frolicking in the rain. The old man entered among the people. “It rained,” he said.

The old man had been dreaming rain. He was the tribal shaman, trained from adolescence in the ability to enter the invisible realms the aborigines call “dreamtime”. From those spaces he would heal, divine, and call to the tribe what was needed. Rain was needed at the moment. He was an expert in these skills.

These skills are not, however, potentially limited to shamans. Each of us possesses the possibility of using our focus, our imaginations, our understanding and creative inner gifts to do, individually or collectively, what the shaman had done. We can create ceremony, sing what we wish to create, draw it, sculpt it, write it, or sit in focused meditation. We can even simply speak the truth we wish to see. We do not need to be trained shamans operating alone. Collectively, our smaller individual acts coalesce into a larger effect.

There are certainly many intertwined issues that face us in this moment. An election is over, but we cannot all sit back and relax and assume that the “old normal” will now return. The “old normal” is gone; what will ensue from the current chaos will be the result of what we collectively dream. We have work to do. What do we wish to see? For example, most of us wish to be free of the coronavirus. Do we wish to see everyone mandated in masks? Do we wish to see everyone required to receive experimental vaccines and tracked to make sure we do? Do we believe that governing from the top to “take care” of everyone, controlling them even as they are relieved of responsibility for addressing things themselves, will be desirable?

One priority is the well-being of our planet. The coronavirus is one virus. Even if it is manmade, as some say, more are in waiting from nature if we do not address the healing of the earth. It is interconnected. I believe we wish to see ourselves, generally, healthy, free to interact with each other, living in cooperation with nature on a healed earth, inhabiting a healed social order in which we can care for and trust one another. I believe we would like an economic order in which everyone can provide for him/herself and his/her family with the work of hands, heart, or mind. If these things are what we wish, we need to envision these things instead of trying to figure out what we need to require others to do and how we will make them do it. We need to cooperatively envision the result, not the means.

There is temptation to turn passive, believing that there is nothing we or anyone can do to affect the present or the outcome of things. Such a stance leads to being taken over as a source of energy for ways which are not ours. There is also temptation to believe that raising anger and marching in the streets, perhaps rioting, will change things in the direction we wish them to go. The fact is that if the negative challenges are met directly, head on, the result will be more of the same, perhaps dressed in different clothes. We must use the indirect way, the way of the old man who “saw” the rain and then it came. Each of us has a piece of the future to imagine. Each of us has a creative way of expressing that (and yes, even cleaning a house can be a creative expression, when it is done with the loving consciousness we envision). What is your thought? How do you wish the world to be? How can you dream that and express your dream? It takes us all.

We live in a world bounded by time. Humans have created this concept and been caught in its web. Time cannot run backwards. We cannot return to the time before COVID-19, or the time before 9/11, or the time our grandmothers tell stories about. We must live in and act in the present, with all its problems that surround us, and also with all the beauty that still exists if we pause and relax long enough to notice it. What our future will be depends on how we orient ourselves now.

May we awaken to the creative power we all embody, and to the focused, reverent application of that ability. May we all dream a world which includes a healed Earth restored to its beauty and harmony, and a social structure which recognizes the full humanity of all of us and supports just, compassionate, and reverent ways of interacting. We are the shamans. It is time we worked.

Peace, Diane

Transition

Transition

A long time ago, I was told, “Do not be afraid of the spaces between existences (times of transition). It will feel like you are dying, but you are not.” I recall those nearly forgotten words now.

We are in a time of transition, one which affects us all and the Earth itself. No matter the culture or philosophy one follows, a transition is a time of collapse or tearing down what exists – a time of chaos – and rebuilding in a new direction. Women who have gone through childbirth are in an excellent place to understand this. Childbirth involves pain and stress for both mother and child, although the memory of it fades as mother and child become bonded in a new way. It is the tearing down of what was – one forming body existing inside another body – and a rebuilding in a new way, mother and child separated and unique but still bonded. It can be a dangerous time, but still a time of great promise and blessing. We are in such a time now, socially in relation to each other, and physically in relation to our Earth. The outcome of this time depends on how we can connect with our spiritual roots and create with the energy we receive.

Some of us are longing for the time that was, and believe that if all of us just obey strictly the official rules, we can return to that time with which we were familiar and things will be the same as before. Within that group, there is an almost desperate adamancy that everyone should obey official directions and behave consistently in lockstep; there is no space for disagreement. These are the people that accost others in parking lots for not wearing masks, or who reprimand people in stores who stand a few inches off the six-feet marks. They tend to speak in heroic terms of those who are telling us the rules. There is certainly value in consistency and cooperation, but this premise of mandatory sameness as a way of return to the past leads only to disappointment and more desperation. We cannot return to the time that was. It has retreated into the past and has already morphed into memory. It had to go. This is a time of transition.

There are also those – perhaps the majority of us – who are unsure if draconian rules are really necessary and are not sure if the virus – the precipitator of the transition – is as deadly as it is reported to be. However, in the midst of chaos, feelings of exhaustion and a certain jadedness leave them too tired to make effort to change things. These of us are content to ride things out and accept whatever may emerge. There is a tendency here to hide one’s head in the sand, ostrich-like, and simply refuse to believe that what emerges can be anything else but acceptable. Doesn’t humanity have all this wonderful technology to save us? Haven’t things always settled down before? The weak point here is apathy. The tendency is to follow along wherever we are led (which is usually by other humans). That tendency leaves us quite vulnerable to anything that may come along, even things that may be regretted later.

Then there are those who are quite aware of the processes of using energy, and who see in this crisis of transition an opportunity to create something profitable for themselves. These are usually people already in some position of power, often silent power, such as corporate and banking millionaires (I will not categorize by saying all), scientific masters at subduing nature, popular or Machiavellian political personages, even those who wear the mantle of philanthropy. They are the forces behind the push for mandatory masks, universal vaccination with digital tracking, more use of technology to capture our actions, thoughts, health and finances, and A1 controlled social systems. Although the central focus is, “What’s in it for me?” (and that focus will be denied if challenged) they possess a refined knowledge of negotiation and collaboration among themselves. They are powerful, and actively try to create what they want.

Among us are also those who engage in vigorous, visible and often violent resistance to what they understand lies beneath stories in the news and on the internet and the rules formed ostensibly to control the spread of the virus and create compliance within society as a whole. “We have to prevent chaos,” the enforcers of law and order may say, but chaos is an integral part of transition. The protestors see what may be coming; they see that what very possibly may be created is contrary to what most of us, awake or not, value and want. They take to the streets, march and perhaps riot. They may attack those they see as the oppressors, use strong language, directly confront the wrongs they see, and try in any way they can to oppose. They do not understand the energy. Protests are initially useful to call attention to something; after that, they simply reinforce what we do not want. The focus on the protest donates energy to the thing one is protesting. It would be better to focus on creating and modeling the change which is desired.

Yet another group – few but growing – either possess or are quickly learning the skill of dancing with the ineffable energy which surrounds us all and from which we emerge. These fellow humans recognize what is going on and are aware of the dangers humanity may be facing as a result of the outcome of the transition. However, because they understand creative energy, life force, they refuse to donate energy to those things by giving them their attention. They recognize what currently exists – the chaos and transition and the various energies contained within it – but refuse to join the worry about it. This is different from the group that is too jaded to act, but who still maintain a level of worry. This last group understands the necessity of remaining as upbeat as possible, and of responding with as much love and non-judgment as they can. That doesn’t mean that they agree with everything or that they think anything goes. They simply refuse to directly oppose, and instead focus on modeling what they believe to be the most just or loving way they can. They are also the ones who love the Earth and model what will heal her (and truly, thereby save us).

These are broad categories, and, because everything and everyone does not neatly fit into boxes, they are not strictly definitive. However, they are good examples of the way various people are responding to the pandemic, the chaos, and the transition. I think we can each recognize ourselves, at least a little bit, in these extremely broad outlines. We are all helping to shape what comes from the transition. There is not one of us who does not affect it. The final result will emerge from our combined visions and actions, mixed together into a new manifestation. Much of the result will come from those of us who understand energy; it will be reinforced by the attitudes and actions of those who do not. Not one of us can truthfully say, “It’s not my responsibility.” Not one of us can avoid choosing, actively or passively, a path.

Now, when there is time amidst the chaos, let us take time to reflect on the path we are choosing, the results which may emerge from that path, the talents we have and those skills we want or need to learn, who our allies will be, and whether or how we wish to benefit each other and the Earth.

If we do not like what uncover as we reflect, there is time still to consciously change to a stance we would rather have. We are all able to do this, but releasing apathy is prerequisite to being able to consciously choose or change or create. Let us wish each other well.

Peace, Diane

Gratitude and Compassion

I grew up believing in the importance of giving, expressed both as putting forth energy to be productive and as charity by donation of time and resources to others in need. I was taught that giving is greater than receiving, to always go the extra mile (being productive so that others would recognize my value), to exert effort to achieve and to maintain, and that giving is a position of power. Sharing with siblings and others was also a given – it was “wrong” to withhold. The best people were always givers.

In contrast, there was a certain shadow around the act of receiving. We were made aware that, quite possibly when we received something, someone else had gone without. There was guilt attached. We were indebted to the giver and must always remember the person who had been kind enough to give something to us. Often, that meant giving in to or obeying the giver. Receiving implied that we were lacking or needy. There was shame attached. To accept charity was considered shameful.

It was okay to “get” – especially if one was a boy. “Getting” was a means to have what one needed or wanted by competing with others and putting out effort to achieve. It was a way for goods and energy and esteem to come in other than by receiving without putting out the usually competitive effort. It was a way of providing for oneself (and one’s family) without admitting any need for the help of others. One earned what one had; therefore, it was not a gift. We were to cultivate the qualities of self-reliance, rather than exhibit any kind of need, including politely refusing assistance when we could. Although competition to “win” was encouraged, taking something away (as in snatching or stealing or deceiving) from someone else was not. We should earn everything we got.

The result was an imbalance; it is an imbalance many of us share. Our culture is more individualistic; it emphasizes self-reliance, pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. The concept of cooperation is there, but the society itself is not particularly cooperative. Most of us are familiar with giving, either as a duty or a self-esteem enhancing act, but do not know what it is to simply receive. We are either one-sided, or we practice neither giving nor receiving very well.

Here is a secret; giving and receiving are the heads and tails of the same coin. One cannot give unless one has something one has first received to be given; the act of true giving opens one to receiving. It is circular.

Saints and sages, masters and mystics have for as long as people can remember exalted the qualities of gratitude and compassion. The spiritually adept of all religions have practiced them, understanding that the qualities of gratitude and compassion are intimately connected. They are on the same continuum. Compassion is giving love in action; gratitude is opening oneself with love to receive. It is not possible to practice compassion for long without also receiving, being filled with not only the motivating love to give, but also with the resources to do the giving. Receiving money, one can give money; receiving skills, one can use those talents to help others; receiving knowledge or understanding, one can share those with others. It is a circle, a continuous exchange within life. We give, and we are given to.

When we look upon receiving as shameful, we block the flow of life through us. I am deliberately using the term “receiving” as opposed to demanding, taking, feeling entitled to, or amassing. Receiving is humble and relaxed, requiring no struggle to “get”. It is trusting that the Universe, God, the One will provide what is needed, and then being open to perceive that we are being given to. The trust and the perception are the basis of gratitude, the feeling of joy and well-being at being provided for. We cannot be grateful if we do not perceive that we are being given to, or if we do not trust in that provision.

Mother Teresa is more known by what she gave to others. Less is known about her trust and her acknowledgement that she was indeed provided for. Somehow, what she needed would always come to her so that she could, in turn, give to others. The circle was intact.

Giving, too, is a humble action. Giving in order to increase one’s power or the esteem in which one is held or to increase our own inflow is not true giving, no matter the amount that may be put out. Giving to charity intentionally in such a way that the gift is actually an investment which comes back in the form of increasing profits for companies in which one is invested is not really giving. It is business. True giving regards the gift as simply belonging to the receiver; it is a natural reaction to feeling compassion or a concern with justice. It does not take a great deal of effort to do.

As a culture, we seem to lack the humility and the communal consciousness which allow us to receive, and to perceive those blessings with gratitude. This weakness results in difficulty with true giving, skewing many of our gifts to be those which increase our power, are meant to increase our esteem in the eyes of others, or to return profit to us. Lack of the ability to feel gratitude also limits our compassion.

Change starts in the present moment. Now is the time to turn our attention to cultivating the ability to feel and express gratitude, while simultaneously keeping our eyes upon the quality of our compassion. The world needs both if it and we, too, are to grow. Our individual practice and mastery of gratitude and compassion are essential. They are a component of the growing world to come.

Peace, Diane