The only difference between emergence and emergency is a y or perhaps a why. Many wonderful things emerged from last week's winter storm - or emergency struck (though usually just inconvenience), depending on the meaning people assign their experiences. This Nor'easter followed close on the heels of the one that gave New England a white Thanksgiving, literally transforming our world magically from one day to the next. We truly live in a world of marvels and miracles, yet our experience is tuned to the exact frequency of our beliefs, perceptions, attitudes and intentions. Those who align with gratitude and empowerment open to be filled with Grace and Joy. Those who choose to be in conflict with Nature are in for a bit of a bumpy ride. Yet there is no need to be in conflict with anything ever. Conflict is completely optional. In every (select "read more" at right to continue...) |
situation, at any moment, we can release attitudes of conflict and opposition, resistance to reality, and instead choose peace, acceptance and alignment with reality. After all, reality can only ever be the present moment, and once we center our attention in this moment, all our energy is available to us to direct in any way we choose, without leaking it all over the past and future and giving it away to other people and situations. We can protect and care for ourselves without aggression, without harm intended to anyone, without escalating an atmosphere of conflict. When we let go of past regrets and future worry, or past successes and future hopes, we settle into the now, open to our power, and become intuitive and effective in our choices and responses. When we recognize our fears, doubts, wishes and habits for what they are, we can accept them as normal human emotions yet make our choices from a deeper place of knowing and guidance. In our core is the calm center in the storm of life, our divine self, just waiting patiently for our human suits to relinquish the busy-ness of trying to cope with life in this world of magic and mystery using just our puny little human intellects and bodies, which can never begin to apprehend the wholeness and perfection of existence, and inevitably get frustrated trying. More control is typically the conditioned response to this overwhelming feeling of insignificance and impotence in the vastness of our world, let alone the Universe, but control is the opposite of true power. Control clenches down where power opens. Control limits where power expands. Control attacks desperately where power touches gently with finesse and finely honed strength. Control breeds more frustration where power liberates. Control manipulates results and appearances where power is truly effective. Releasing control and conflict means setting aside judgment. Deciding that something is bad and we are victims is the quickest way to shut down creative thinking, thereby setting up a vicious circle of conflict and suffering resulting in less power and more frustration. Aligning with the life force in everything - including the storm - frees our greater minds to do what they are meant to do, which is to co-create reality by constantly tuning in, shifting and adjusting, in alignment with Natural and Spiritual Law, all the while holding steadily to our core beliefs and purpose. It's actually easier now than ever to discover our true purpose as humans here on Earth. Obviously it's not to accumulate wealth for our own greedy desires - that doesn't seem to be going so well for the collective benefit of humanity or for the Earth. Nor does it seem to be to withdraw from the world, declare material existence sinful and try to deny our humanity in search of pure spirituality. Loving the world, loving humanity, loving the spirit within us all - this becomes the clear path into the future, if we want to have a future as humans. It doesn't matter if we can understand how to do it. Naturally we can't because we're coming from the experience of living in a society that is literally racing to its own destruction. Climate change is not a practical problem with a technical solution. That is as absurd as trying to stop the next winter storm from swirling into the East coast instead of just stocking up on bottled water and canned goods, lighting the wood stove and gathering candles, changing the schedule and making the best of it. When viewed at this small scale it's easy to understand that we're the ones who need to adjust. In a tug-of-war with Nature - we will lose. And we are losing, but we need to release what is dragging us down and holding us back, just lose it willingly. Let go of the ways we used to fix, build, think, grow, communicate, heal, educate, worship, organize, travel, plan - and make room for something better. Compost those losses into fertilizer and welcome the transformation that must come before we know how to live in a viable manner on this Earth. It isn't just the next step in our technological advancement, it's our conscious evolution. We have more than enough tools and gadgets, machines and widgets, mathematical formulas and logarithms. What we need now is the technology of our true power, which is intuitive, resilient, transformative, in addition to the lower intellectual functions like logic, analysis, memorization, computation. Only our quantum intelligence has the ability to learn to function as a human community of whole individuals living and working and playing and creating together in harmony and conscious partnership with Earth and all Her creatures. Our rational minds are like robots that have gotten away from their programmers, zombies or vampires that prey on hapless victims, aliens obsessed with their science fair projects. Our cultural stories tell us what we are, mirror what we fear, yet also guide us to envision the horizon beyond the hole we've dug for ourselves. Creativity is a function of our higher, holistic intelligence that completely confounds the intellect, and that by design. Our imaginations can venture freely and fluently where no rational thought can follow, thankfully, into the realms of emotion, intuition, symbolism, art and ritual, transcendent experiences that make us human and link us to the Divine. The measly gray, squishy brain we worship as the ultimate genius has no ethical guidance mechanisms built in, no sense of greater purpose, no awareness of itself in the scheme of things, no deep compassionate connection to others and ultimately no capacity for self-preservation, as thought cannot exist on its own but can become a parasite that eventually devours its host. As we are doing to the planet. However, Her constitution is strong and she is producing immune system responses like typhoons and hurricanes, blizzards and tornadoes, to eradicate the elements that would lower Her resistance to disease. Do not mistake our nurturing and forgiving Mother Earth for a dead rock that is simply here for our exploitation and amusement. Do not confuse the life of Nature with the giant, invisible hand of a remote universal father figure. Gaia is alive and She will continue to fight back, but Her spirit is in its Essence pure Love, as is ours. She wishes Her children no harm, yet She will not let us destroy Her. And why should She. And why would we try. The youngest members of our community were the most disappointed when the lights came back on. They found their power in the darkness while most adults were running around repeating that they had lost theirs. They are the next generation, the ones that may not live out their days on life support from the gargantuan utility grids, the ones who need to be learning about resilience and quantum intelligence, not training for a life of dependency on fossil fuels or any other source of power outside themselves, their communities and the natural world. Children found their calling in helping others, discovered the community that forms at the Town Center shelter when people have gone without electricity in their homes for three days, rose to the challenge of learning new skills and solving problems with a spirit of play and deep appreciation for the seriousness of the situation. I heard from people enjoying the darkness, the quiet, going to bed early, being guided to do things they wouldn't have done otherwise, but which were pleasant and beneficial, freed from electronic distractions. Some were thankful for a day off work or school, family time, the need to come together around the wood stove or in the town shelter. The stone soup that had been planned for the day the electricity did come back on was cooked instead at the community center and enjoyed by all who gathered there to visit the library, meet Santa, or shop in the local artisans' gift boutique, just adding to the festivity. Our town does gather regularly to share food and company, even when we can provide for ourselves at home. We do have some local programs to help balance the flows of resources and services among those with need and those with surplus. Many households do have wood stoves for heat and cooking, lanterns and candles for light. Many people here are comfortable melting snow for washing water and refrigerating food in the snow, hanging laundry by the stove to dry. It's our resilience and willingness that makes us strong, not our stubbornness and anger. However, we have a long way to go before we can claim sovereignty and independence as a community. We definitely need to become more truthful about our dependency and vulnerability. We need a more effective way to communicate between those who have something to offer and those with sudden needs. Businesses need to take responsibility for the safety of their employees by not expecting workers to venture out in snow coming down at a rate of an inch an hour, offering paid snow days or weather days for workers in non-essential services. Midwives, emergency room doctors and nurses, and snow plow drivers should be just about the only ones on the road in a Nor'easter, ice storm or flood, with proper equipment and training for severe weather driving. Driving is often an essential part of employment in our society as it currently operates, and safe commuting needs to be a consideration for employers, structuring their businesses to absorb the known necessity of time off during extreme weather events, rather than pressuring their workers to sacrifice their own and others' safety or much needed pay or personal time just to keep churning out widgets. Nature will guide us if we let Her, yet we must still take up the mantle of our responsibility. We are no longer merely guileless and blameless children of Earth or children of God, or animals living by instinct alone. We can learn to develop our quantum intelligence to respond to the unexpected in alignment with the greatest good instead of conflict or denial, and to transform emergencies into emergences of creativity, healing, advancement and learning, turning breakdowns into breakthroughs on so many levels - individual and community, family and business, in the face of the usual changing seasons and climate change feedback loops we have set in motion that we cannot simply reverse. We must become partners with Earth and Spirit, in wholeness and human community. Nature continues to enfold us in Her majesty, magic and mystery. When we let go of the urgency to fix and control, the temptation to surrender to despair and worry, and just become present in the moment, listening to the peaceful silence of the snowfall, greeting the sparkling snowflakes as fairy kin, admiring the inspired artwork of Gaia's frosty paintbrush over the mountains, and feel the awe of a spark of the divine inhabiting a human body in a sacred world of exquisite beauty, bounty and blessings, then in that moment we can be renewed, rejuvenated, inspired and uplifted, filled with gratitude and Grace. From that core of power we can go on to do anything we need to do, anything we're called to do. The "how" comes after the "wow!" |