It’s A New Year and a New Awaking for Humanity
We need the contrast of the dark to reach for the light
If you caught our Happy Holidays post from December 25 you might recall reading that we’ve been in a slowdown mode, going inward, reflecting, and peeling additional layers. As we’ve come to align our lives more closely with the changing of the seasons and feeling nature’s rhythm more palpably, our energy level has dropped considerably during this time of short days and long nights.
We’ve been drinking in the quiet afforded us by living so remotely, keeping the fire fed and the house warm, cooking amazing meals, reading, meditating, and watching some amazing shows and movies. Most recently Disney’s Andor, a prequel series to the Rogue One movie that is quite epic and a highly poignant commentary on the nature of fascism.
But I digress. Not having posted for more than a week it’s time. It’s time to try and coalesce all the amazing insights that have been seeping into my conscious reflections. Too many even to form into a single essay. When the buzz of daily living quiets down and we retreat from the intense sensory input of our modern culture new things bubble to the surface. I can’t even say specifically what new things are emerging, but rather that I can feel it in the air — that as the calendar begins anew, so too do we.
I’ve come to more fully appreciate that most of what we write about at the DEEPER side of things is about unraveling narratives and offering alternative suggestions for replacement. And that almost all the common narratives of our modern world are counterproductive to the evolution of self-love.
So much of our thinking and narratives relate to comparison and competition, as our worth is tied to things that compare us to others in a more favorable light. We seek accomplishment more so than stillness. We drive for independence rather than embracing our interdependence. We point the finger first, and as Brené Brown has said, humans are wired for defensiveness. Symbiosis feels like a farfetched fantasy when its evidence lies in plain sight.
Mostly, we give way to fear in all its forms. Subtle fears, heavy fears, pervasive fears. Maria and I have been looking at our propensity for worrying, which is another form of fear. We’ve come to recognize that it’s habitual, that it’s been there since childhood, that it runs through our thinking like a computer operating system quietly running in the background affecting literally everything in our lives.
We’re not alone in this. Most of humanity worries chronically, but for the most part unconsciously. Therefore it drives us unconsciously. Which is why elevating our consciousness is so important because it brings things from the shadows into the light of day.
I feel continually encouraged by so many of the younger generations who are shedding conventional norms. They don’t merely accept the narrative of the older generations so readily, as people of my generation did some 40 years ago. This gives me hope and encouragement for the future. When I see the signs of change I feel a lightness of heart, and the thought comes to mind — finally it’s happening!
But of course it’s been happening all along, it’s just that now we’re reaching a critical mass. A mass of people saying enough, saying I’m not living my life the way you think I should (“you” being the amorphous anthropomorphized collective mass called human culture). Instead I’m going to follow my heart, my intuition, my inner desire for freedom, simplicity, interdependence, and the cultivation of self-love.
A friend recently forwarded a video interview with Gary Zukav and his wife Linda Francis on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday from 2012. It followed the release of his book, Spiritual Partnership, which I’m now reading. In much of Zukav’s writing he contrasts those who live from the point of five sensory input, versus multisensory input. He wrote that in two generations most all of humanity will live by multisensory input. I think maybe even less time the way things are progressing.
Multisensory input enables us to break down old narratives and beliefs. In fact, it’s precisely what enables narratives to disintegrate. Arguing over the finer points of philosophy won’t do it. It’s only when we open our hearts to the reality of our interdependence do we begin to see the world in a new way. It’s when our world view changes. It’s when our hearts open and begin to feel compassion for people suffering in far off places. It’s when we see images of rainforests being cut down at a dizzying pace that we feel the pain of loss. And the more of us who feel the pain, the faster we will hasten the end of extraction and exploitation.
It's a new year and new times are upon us. Things are changing all around us. We can see if it we look. If we slow down and allow the stillness to wash over us like a cleansing spring rain. There is much work to be done. There is much suffering and exploitation that continues. There are many who are fighting the changing of human consciousness with every fiber of their being. But like the great poet Rumi once said, “If everything around seems dark, look again, you may be the light.”
And as I’ve written previously, darkness is the doorway to our collective healing. It’s what allows the light to propagate. Without it we take everything that is sacred for granted. It can only be this way — that we need the contrast of the dark to reach for the light.
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