In so many ways, these are perilous times. And one question that begs to be answered is: how did we get here?
And this leads to the next question: where exactly is "here"?
And these two inquiries lead us to yet another: Just what is it that we don't know and see that is deeply important for us to understand, hold with conscious awareness, and act upon?
I don't believe that there is any one answer to these and other vital questions, but rather many layers which are rooted in the trajectory that we humans have been on for a long, long time. I also say this with the deepest humility and compassion.
It is hard to be human. It is hard to be a fully embodied human being with our hearts and minds and souls increasingly open and growing and evolving. This takes great courage. And a lot of support. At least this has certainly been my experience.
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One problem, of course, and to put it mildly, is how to be conscious without becoming overwhelmed? How do we manage any true degree of balance in a world so profoundly out of balance?
Through my own personal life experiences, I can answer this in two ways. One is to respond to overwhelm with disassociation and denial, addictions and distractions, projections and a whole host of ways in which I have disconnected from knowing what I know, seeing what I see, feeling what I feel, needing what I need. This was my path for the first many years of my life which led me further and further away from my own heart and the sacred thread woven through all of our hearts.
I got caught up in separation. Thích Nhất Hạnh wisely said, "We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness. Human beings are not separate from each other or Nature. We are totally interrelated and our actions have consequences to all. What we do to others we do to ourselves."
So true. So true.
There are many paths that we can root into which nourish our growing consciousness and experience of what Thích Nhất Hạnh refers to as "interbeing." And this is the journey that I have been on for the past nearly 40 years — awakening from the illusion of separateness.
And as we awaken, staying neutral becomes less and less possible. Instead, it is increasingly likely that we will be compelled to act, to do whatever it is that we came here to do to affect needed change, healing, and transformation for ourselves and our world.
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Yet, how do we awaken from this "illusion of separateness" when all around us there is so much suffering?
How do we face this? How do we stay open when oil tankers are exploding and poisoning and killing our ecosystems? When there are endless wars and atrocities and mass shootings and epidemics of violence? When there is so much poverty and injustice and hunger and homelessness? When species are going extinct and our warming climate is bringing catastrophic floods and wildfires and more?
How do we stay awake and aware when all of this and more is happening right now, here, today? As Joanna Macy wisely asks in Active Hope — "How do we face the mess we're in without going crazy?"
Paradoxically, what first spontaneously arose for me as I wrote this question is the awareness that I have today that we go crazy if we don't face the mess we're in today.
And we cannot face this mess, these horrors and heartbreaks, alone in isolation. We need each other. We truly and deeply do.
As I've grown older, it has become my undeniable experience that we are indeed all connected, all related, all family. The suffering and the joy of others is also mine. Therefore, and whether we know it or not, the widespread trauma that is impacting life on Earth today has already made its way into our bodies, hearts, minds, and souls. We are truly all in this together.
The trauma is here. It is undeniable. It is just a matter of whether or not we are consciously aware of it. Our task, I believe, is to do the ongoing courageous work of making the unconscious conscious. And knowing that as we do, with each step of growing awareness, that we can bring compassion to the rage and sorrow and grief we feel. Because this is indeed the measure of our humanness, of our evolutionary maturity, and of our engagement in meeting the needs, as best we can, of ourselves, our loved ones, and our changing world.
Yes, the heart that breaks open strengthens, deepens, evolves. Together, we can counter the toxic norm of rugged individualism through building relationships and communities of support. And, more and more, we can create the needed space for our own healing and that of our shared beautiful hurting world.
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As I seek balance, remember beauty and gratitude and love, and hold conscious awareness of the suffering of so many, the question I return to again and again is what to do we do with this trauma that is everywhere? How do we carry
and hold ourselves and others during this time of Great Transition? How
do we go through the initiations we're facing, making possible our human
evolution with ever growing resilience and courage, truth and
integrity, support and community, consciousness and caring, and fierce
love? How do we do this?
For one, we cannot stay neutral.
Our neutrality, our silence, our apathy and inaction, our ignorance, denial and minimization all ultimately serve as complicity with that which is at the root of so much harm.
Again, I say this with the deepest humility and compassion.
It is exceedingly difficult to extract ourselves from systems of harm — belief systems, political systems, cultural norms, a status quo we are indoctrinated into — when these are the waters we've long been swimming in. For most of us, I believe, this is a lifelong process — this journey of evolving, both individually and collectively, and shedding that which harms for that which nourishes and is life-giving.
Growing our circle of caring is essential. Who and what is included in our circle of caring. How do we put love, compassion, caring, kindness, and generosity into action?
Which brings us back to the essential process of reconnecting ever more deeply with our own selves, our own hearts and bodies and minds and souls. And this journey peels away at all the separateness we've ingested and reconnects us with our experience of aliveness and the sacred thread of life and love connecting us all.
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All of this brings me back full circle to the question: how did we get here?
As we choose to actively follow the threads of love and the threads of truth through trustworthy resources of integrity, the dire threats that we are faced with at this time in our human history can no longer be denied or minimized. And we recognize that this trajectory has not happened over night. There have been scientists and researchers, indigenous peoples and other truth-tellers worldwide who have been warning us for decades. Decades.
And then we must ask, truly, how is it that our human species has brought all of life on Earth to the brink of extinction?
For one, I don't believe that the interwoven roots of suffering, death, and perilous crises that are overwhelming the planet today could possibly have occurred if truth were a prevailing norm in our nation and across most of the world. But it's not. Truth is not something that is valued in America and beyond. If it were, we would not be facing the extinction of most life on Earth. We wouldn't.
In Choosing Earth, Duane Elgin writes:
In other countries, such as the U.S., restrictions on media freedoms are imposed,not by the government, but by the self-censorship of media companies seeking to maximize their profits by churning out entertainment programs filled with commercial advertising. In the U.S., we can see the results of this consumer bias in the grossly inadequate levels of attention given to climate catastrophe, species extinction, and other areas of the deepening Earth crisis. To illustrate: If we add up the number of minutes of climate coverage from broadcast TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox), for an entire year,we see that the total number of minutes of news programming dropped from just over four hours in 2017 to just over two hours in 2018. Two hours of collective attention to our
global climate crisis for an entire year! This is an astonishingly inadequate level of attention for a modern democracy facing a planetary crisis! Other factors such as the mass extinction of species are essentially being ignored altogether.
In 2020, the overall coverage of climate-change on broadcast TV news shows plummeted even further—by 53 percent. Over the course of an entire year, these news shows covered climate change for a total of 112 minutes (less than two hours) in 2020—the lowest amount of coverage since 2016. This drastic decrease in climate coverage occurred despite numerous climate-fueled extreme weather events, important reports regarding the effects of climate change, repeated assaults on the environment by political and business interests, and a presidential election in which climate change took center stage. Overall, climate coverage in 2020 made up only four-tenths of one percent of broadcast television news shows. This abysmal level of attention illustrates with startling clarity how, in service of corporate profits, the U.S. is being devastatingly dumbed-down by broadcast TV networks. (https://choosingearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Choosing-Earth_2022_PDFV8b.pdf; pages 141-142.)
This illuminates the importance of our choices related to telling the truth. And, taking a step back, the importance that we know what the truth is in the first place.
We live in a nation and too much of world that is working hard to keep us distracted and divided, asleep and addicted, sucked into materialism and consumerism, mired in the illusion of separateness, and apathetic and silent about all the things that most matter. In such a culture, our aliveness, our purpose and deep capacity for connection, generosity, compassion, and love is greatly diminished.
This must change. It must.
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So many, including myself, were amazed and changed by the extraordinary film, Don't Look Up (https://www.netflix.com/title/81252357). Just imagine if we spread the word, each and every one of us, and encouraged each other to Look Up! Again and again.
Don't turn away. Look up! LOOK UP!!
Just imagine if courage and truth-telling and assuming responsibility for countering the deadly silence and misinformation and disinformation of the corporate mass media became contagious. Just imagine a world where we were moved again and again to speak up. Just imagine how everything would change if truth-telling were to become the norm. Just imagine!
Just imagine if we refused to give our power away to all the messages that silence us. Just imagine if we found our individual and collective voices. Just imagine!
Just imagine if communities of truth-tellers inspired other communities of truth-tellers and the ripples created grew and grew and grew. Just imagine!
Just imagine if inspiration became contagious and the consciousness that our voices and what we say and do really matters. Just imagine!
Yes, there will be some things that are not agreed upon. That said, the overwhelming truth is that we are all experiencing a climate catastrophe — and one which is also interconnected with all the other crises we face. Address one and follow the threads and a great transformation will be upon us.
It is up to us — how we face this time of Great Transition. Among my many ongoing prayers is that we will trade in neutrality and silence for the individual and collective power of our voices and actions. There is so very much at stake.
And bless Howard Zinn. I miss him deeply. And his wisdom lives on. Truly, we all have an enormous responsibility to bring to the attention of others information they do not have, which has the potential of causing them to rethink long-held ideas.
This post, and so many others, is for our children and grandchildren and all of the children of all of the species everywhere. Another world is possible. It is up to us.
Bless us all,
Molly
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Highly recommended:
Choosing Earth: Humanity's Journey of Initiation
Through Breakdown and Collapse to
Mature Planetary Community
Please go here to purchase the updated edition:
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