Once again, I am hearing a lot about The End of the World as We Know It. Certainly there is a lot in the news about climate change, political unrest, global disasters, economic downturns, and plagues of locusts. I am pretty sure it was actually raining frogs on the baseball field the other day.
Now I am as much for the end of the world as anyone else, I guess. I think it’s all about how you choose to view the experience and how we adapt when faced with change. We can choose to view change with FEAR or with FAITH and that choice makes all the difference.
Conspiracy Theorists, Bible Thumpers and New Agers all have variations on the same theme and all of them equally entertaining if you have a warped sense of humor, like I do. Religious types preach fire and brimstone and warn us of Armageddon. New Agers look through the lens of the Mayan calendar and the 2012. And there are some pretty entertaining ideas floating around Conspiracy Theory World, that don’t seem all that different to me then the biblical references of Armageddon.
What most of these End of the Worlder’s have in common is that they all view the inevitability of change with FEAR.
According to the New Agers, the magnetic poles are going to shift and the south pole will be somewhere in New Zealand and the north pole will be in Cleveland. Personally, I am not too worried about this, since I am not sure anyone in Cleveland will notice. But “They” say that the ocean will overwhelm the landmasses, the polar ice caps will melt and all Republicans will suffer righteously as they get shunted into some of the less groovier dimensions. Is a pole shift any different really then rivers running red and plagues of boils and sores? I think not. Fear, fear, fear…
What if we could view The Shift not through the eyes of fear, but rather with hope, optimism and dare I say, faith?
I am sure we all have opinions and predictions about the nature of the shift. Some of them seem very obvious to me, just look around at the way the world is changing and you will see for yourself, through your own lens. My experience of this, aside from the increased scariness of the nightly news, is that I feel a general trend in the world of stripping away things to their bare bones. Many people I know are deeply in transition now, all kinds of things that are no longer working are being broken down to their essential parts.
This is one of the processes of Alchemy, the sacred science of transformation, and it is called dissolution. In order for transformation to happen, things must break apart.
For me, that is where faith comes in. I know there is a plan. And I also know, it’s God’s plan and so, by nature is, a mystery. There is so much that is inherently unknowable about our soul’s journey here. It seems to me the height of human hubris to think we can understand The Mystery. It’s like looking at an Impressionistic painting from an inch away. All you see is colorful little dots. But when you step across the room and see the big picture, it all becomes clear. I can choose to have faith every time I am confronted with The Mystery and mostly, I do. Faith for me, is a felt sensation. It’s an inner knowing that I feel deep in my heart, like an expansion, like a swelling of love and honor. Mostly when I am in the presence of The Mystery, I feel humbled and moved. It is sacred to witness.
The conspiracy theorists tout the ideas that secret branches of the sub-government and social elite are trying to change the world to suit their ideology and fatten their bank accounts. This seems mostly along the lines of getting rid of the “useless eaters” or the “sheeple” by depopulating the earth and turning the rest of us into mindless zombie slaves.
Smart chips installed without our knowing, designer viruses, government cover ups, these are the tools of the great conspiracy. Last I heard, the moon was really hollow and had a secret UFO base, from which the aliens have been monitoring our evolution for eons, secretly messing with our DNA for their own nefarious (or altruistic- depending on who you are talking to) purposes. Fear, fear, fear….
Personally, I am stumping for the aliens myself. I am fully expecting the Vulcans to show up any minute and offer us entrance into the Federation in order to save our species from our own inherent greed and lack of vision. I wear my tin foil hat frequently, just to make sure they know I am on their side.
I was in a funk a little bit ago. Couldn’t get out of it. Nothing was really wrong, I just felt off. Sad, depressed, very glass half empty. I can sometimes fall into periods on my life were things feel not enough. I feel like I am not enough and I look at my life, and think, usually with disgust and disappointment, that this is not where I wanted to be in my life at 45 years old. It’s so easy for me to feel sorry for myself!
From the broader, higher part of me, I actually knew I had nothing to complain about, but I wasn’t FEELING it. I was feeling small, rather whiney and pretty disempowered.
Then came The Shift. Maybe it was the energy of the day. Maybe it was my own soul making a kindly course correction. Or maybe it was the process of the Mystery School that I teach in. We moved from the 5th Chakra (communication, truth and creating yourself in the world) which was harboring a piece of feeling like a victim, to 6th and 7th chakra and the whole world shifted under my feet.
These upper chakras hold the energy of clear vision and detachment, thank God. I saw suddenly that every day is a gift. A precious gem, full of promise, full of choices and often full of surprises. I have nothing to whine about. Yes, there are things I can’t change in my life. These are opportunities to practice detachment and have faith in the mystery. Sometimes lessons are about endurance, a highly underrated ability, but one that is a central theme in our mystical journey. Frequently, the lesson is not clear to me until much later, if ever, but I don’t need to take it personally. It just is. Faith, faith, faith.
The Shift is an inner experience. Nothing changed in the outer world. The only thing that changed was my perception. Now if you want to tell me that THAT is the 4th dimension, I might buy that theory. The exciting thing for me is that in the past The Shift came on me spontaneously. I couldn’t make it happen, it just did. I couldn’t get out of my own way, I would just wallow around until The Shift happened of it’s own accord.
These days, I can make the Shift more or less at will. It takes a lot of work and concentration to do it, a sort of mental discipline, but it’s a good one. And it really brings about a fairly instant relief of suffering. Whew!
And I have so much joy in my life. It is extraordinarily rich, really. Nice juicy relationships. Lovely, smart and healthy children, full of promise. I enjoy excellent health and there is food on the table and money in the bank enough for what is needed at the time. I can choose to shift my energy away from complaining about lots of things I can’t change and choose to enjoy the richness that life offers me every minute. It feels good.
And most importantly, I can relax and let go of my fear of change. Luckily, I am also by temperament, a person who enjoys change. I get bored easily and dislike routine. So when things change and move, I like it. “Something is happening!” I think and I have faith that that something will be an amazing adventure. I have faith that the difficult parts are for my own enlightenment and edification, even if I can’t see it in the moment. And most of all, I have faith in my own ability to roll with the changes, to do the best I can in every moment even when I can’t control how things are going.
So The Shift is happening, as it always has, and always will and I say, bring it! Faith, faith, faith!
