Planetary evolution

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Guns and Paradigms

It’s Friday afternoon.  I’m driving home from the school where I teach (way on the other side of Denver from where I live), moving slowly, because everyone’s doing what I’m doing at the exact same time.  It’s been a long week and my brain is fried.  The news is playing on the car radio, senators are debating gun laws, but it’s really more of a background noise for my drifting thoughts.   At this point, in this mental state,  I wonder if it is really about more gun control versus less gun control, or about our collective, cultural willingness or unwillingness to find new, nonviolent, empowering, peace-promoting, effective responses to whatever it is that makes humans want to shoot or otherwise harm other humans on ANY scale, from personal assault to mass murder to war.  Maybe this whole debate is a distraction that keeps our national attention away from other, deeper, more entrenched problems.  Eh?????

One one point, at least, both sides are the same: they both envision a world where guns are necessary for wielding against other people, or against other beings.  One side wants to reserve the right to use guns to prevent other people from using them against people (themselves or others).  The other side wants to reserve the right to use guns against the people on the first side, if it should ever come to that.  And yes, there are many sub-arguments on either side.  I honestly see where both sides are coming from, and I see both as having valid concerns within the framework of the current conversation.  But they are both based on a worldview in which it is necessary to have guns and to have the right to use them against other people in certain specific circumstances.  And I do not believe that that worldview is either necessary or predetermined.  I do believe that as a group, the direction we humans need to go in is beyond the debate about whether and how to regulate firearms and who can use them and how and when, and what happens to us when we break those rules.

Earlier, on the way TO said job on the other side of the city, I heard this archeologist talking on Science Friday about the work of figuring out what exactly made the dinosaurs go extinct, and he made a comment to this effect: that though we can’t do something now, or even imagine how we would do it, that’s no reason to assume we won’t be able to do it in the future, possibly even the near future.  He noted that even scientists tend to underestimate the magnitude of advances we’ll make, and how quickly we’ll make them.  That’s in the field of research technology, of course, but I think the same is true of any area of human learning, any field in which we increase in understanding over time.  We don’t know what we’re going to be able to do, we are unable to picture what it would be like to do a thing, and then suddenly someone experiences a paradigm shift, and is able to see it, able to conceive it, able to actually do the thing that did not even have a name before.  This was the first thing we learned about in the H.C. at IUP: Thomas Kuhn and the idea of the paradigm shift, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.  Back then my professor took me out for pizza because he thought it was so nutty of me to apply that theory to the spread of Christianity in my final paper.  Since that time, though, I’ve seen repeatedly how true it is of any area of human development or spiritual evolution.  To make dramatic shifts in consciousness, in understanding, to let go of problems and let them be transformed, we need to look for, cultivate, and encourage the conditions under which paradigm shifts are likely to occur.  Such shifts are possible when, and only when, we believe they are.  Although we cannot see the next step on our path, or even that there is a path, and not a gaping void, we can’t (and we don’t) let that stop us from walking forward.

So how is this related to gun laws?  The debate will play itself out how it will.  If there really are specific regulations or liberties that will lead to fewer acts of violence being committed, then I hope those are the ones that get passed.  From what I have read (like this piece), it seems like the most powerful players in this game are the gun manufacturers, and they aren’t interested in liberty OR saving lives — just money.  So I’m just saying.  The whole debate is taking place on the surface of the issue.  I’d love to see the profit factor be acknowledged regularly in the public debate for the huge force that it really is.  And at the same time as we (at least those who are participating in this conversation in good faith) are collectively looking for the best, most responsible ways to manage the use and sale of guns on a practical, this-moment basis,  I would ask Americans to also do whatever they can to open their minds to the idea that the real issue might be something else, and that by meeting and addressing and solving this real issue — the real causes of violence, of fear, rage, the urge to hurt others or ourselves — we will solve so much more than just “the gun debate.”  We need to look for solutions to the suffering that exists, and take responsibility for our roles in causing it.  It will necessarily involve advancing in our understanding of how connected we all are, and how if we harm any being, we are truly and literally harming ourselves.  That goes for you, too, corporations.  ESPECIALLY for you.

Ok, that’s all I’m going to say on the topic.  May peace be with us on Earth.

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2012, 2013

I find it peculiar that in all the media references to the Mayan calendar business re: 12/21/12, the only aspect of the hype that any reporter or mainstream commentator (at least that I heard, which to be honest is not a very broad sample) mentioned was the supposed end of the world. I know there were folks out there who did interpret this 2012 stuff as an apocalypse prophecy, and also those who tried to scam the former group into buying doomsday condos in the remote Caucasus mountains or whatever it was. But this seemed like a fringe element to me. Far fewer people seemed to REALLY expect huge disasters than, say, at the time of the whole Y2K thing. That’s just my observation.

In my actual life, I know a lot of people who were and remain strongly invested in the concept of 2012, not as the end of the world, but as the end of an era. Or, as they might put it better, the beginning of something new. Most people I know who took the idea of something happening on 12/21/12 (and/or 12/12/12) seriously thought it would be something like an infusion of new energies into our spiritual bodies or the planet, or an evolutionary advance in the spiritual plane for some or all beings on Earth. Some also thought of it as a dramatic shift in the values or priorities of our culture(s). This shift might be a smooth and easy experience of raised energy leading to better choices, or civilizations might be forced to change their ways through difficult trials and suffering brought by the many errors of our previous ways. So in that sense some would say there could be some events that might actually seem “apocalyptic,” but they are really opportunities for humanity to realize the damage it’s doing. Imagine if the media actually reported on and discussed that! What a different tone that would be, and what possibilities for national self-examination that would bring!

Not that I have ever witnessed, at least, the US observing that the difficulties or tragedies it’s experiencing are the direct results of harm it’s done in the world and been moved to become different or better. That’s one reason I’m skeptical about all of these predictions. And I’m also skeptical of predictions that are very tied to specific dates. (Calendars change all the time. We’ve only had our since 1582. And not everyone in the world follows the same calendar.) And anything that gives an extremely specific description of something metaphysical, like the exact minutes during which the cosmic energies will be pouring in, or the precise language with which to address angels — it just feels uncompelling to me, like someone trying to insist their style is the only true aesthetic that everyone should follow. Faced with claims like these, I become a militant agnostic: you know, “I don’t know, and you don’t either.”

Still, I like the idea that maybe we have collectively reached a spiritual growth spurt, or that we are now receiving an extra potent dose of support from the Universe, or that enough humans have turned away from the dominant greed-based worldview to effect a change in outcomes. I would like to see the world at that place, and I also welcome the nudge toward personal growth and change for the better. In my more positive agnostic moments I say something more like, “I don’t know what it is, but it’s something.”

For myself, what I noticed on 12/21/12 was an immediate resurgence of personal issues (or as some would say, character defects) that I thought I had more or less licked!  First thing that morning, I dealt with an emotional meltdown, then had a few more in the next week.  I there are still rooms in my house that need to be cleaned out (which shouldn’t come as a surprise!).  I would think the message from the Universe will be different for everybody, but for me I get the sense that Spirit is letting me know what are the most pressing issues for me to work on, the biggest things currently separating me from a peaceful and harmonious existence.  I’ll be honest, this does not sound like a picnic to me — in fact it stirs a lot of fears about living without the old familiar (though harmful) coping mechanisms — but I feel willing to go there … hopefully without too much kicking and screaming.

Some things to let go of (again … and again):

  • Attachment
  • Jealousy
  • Control
  • Selfishness
  • Complaining

Some things to cultivate:

  • Generosity
  • Acceptance
  • Confidence
  • Appreciation
  • Lightheartedness
  • Friendship
  • Service

In 2013, I ask for guidance about how best to serve and help the world.  I want my life to add positive, tangible good to the balance of existence on this planet.  It is my intention to bring my life into greater alignment with the Highest Good.

Happy New Year everybody!  Love and blessings to you all!

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New Age

***woo-woo alert!!!***  (though you could probably pick that up from the title)

Not long ago, a bunch of people I know were talking about how the actual Age of Aquarius was going to begin at 7:25 a.m. on Feb. 14, when the astrological arrangements described in the song by the 5th Dimension would be occurring. 

As someone who is inclined to give astrology some credit, I thought this was neat (and a fine occasion for some happy celebratory singing) even though I don’t get so excited by “THIS IS THE ACTUAL, EXACT TIME!!!!!!!!” type things.  I have the sense that astrologically speaking, in any cycle that takes longer than a couple of weeks to complete, you’ll be feeling the effects of the new element mingling with those of the old element for a decent while on either side of the event.  In other words, whatever day and time “the big switch” is supposed to happen or have happened, we would now be in the midst of a somewhat drawn-out transition.

Transition to what?  Astrology folks have offered a lot of suggestions, generally seeming to be based on extrapolations from the meaning of the sign Aquarius.  This Wikipedia article summarizes numerous, often conflicting, ideas about the when and what of the Aquarian Age.  Now me, as you may guess — I’m both sympathetic and skeptical.  I think “we” (the humans on Earth, individually and as a collective body, and whatever other energy flows, spiritual entities, etc. might also be co-habiting this planet with us) are transitioning into a new era of some kind.  I think this transition is quick enough to be perceived on a year-to-year scale.  I would say that it’s more of an evolutionary sort of change, i.e., we will be doing at least some things in a better way.  I’m skeptical in that I withhold judgment on what the content of those changes will supposedly be — like the militant agnostic — “I don’t know, and you don’t either!”  Maybe it’s just from the song, but people seem to hold the idea that “peace will guide the planet.”  …  I’ll believe that when I see it.

Nonetheless, my gut tells me that that’s the general direction, and a good inner compass for orienting myself by in the coming years.  Everything I think about this “new age” thing is a translation from a gut feeling — and I’ll be honest, gut-language is not always easy to translate to something that can be written down or stated clearly (in a way that can even be read by others, let alone disagreed with!)  Yet I am deeply convinced that something is happening, and convinced that I can perceive it happening!  Wacko? 

For example — one of the phenomena I see as associated with this, shall we say, larger energetic shift is a dissipation of fixed identities and bounded categories in general.  This came up in a conversation I was having with my partner, who is trans, about the current policies of some women-only spaces, which say that trans men (those who change their gender or sex from female to male) are no longer “women” for the purposes of the rule, and are thus no longer allowed to be there.  As I was making my point, I found myself qualifying, something like — “Although whatever role the women-born-women policies may have played might have been a useful one in the twentieth century, those types of distinctions are not going to be as relevant in the new era, so …” 

So?  Obviously fixed gender (and national, and racial, and sexual, etc., etc.) identities and categories have been in a state of decline in the world of theory for decades.  Many, many people have made very strategic assaults on those categories and done a lot of actual WORK to take some of their power away.  Social conditions, by their ever-changing nature, work against any category stability over time, and if, as some say, our time is “speeding up,” it will become harder and harder to see why we attributed stability to those categories in the first place.

Maybe that’s the metaphysical piece of it; it’s certainly not the only piece.  All I can say is that I have a strong gut sense that the dissolution of boundaries (previously assumed to be fixed or to have limited, finite permeability) is going to be a major characteristic of the new age.  I know this is not really a position that goes well with academia.  One of my clearest memories from any class I took in graduate school was of this classmate of mine aggressively denouncing the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (incidentally, a very important book to me as a teenager) as an example of the rampant exploitation of Eastern philosophy, religion, and culture by privileged Westerners for consumption and fetish.  It took me literally YEARS to chew through this incident to the conclusion that it had so bothered me because it dismissed an extremely real experience I had of connecting with my spiritual self through teachings that arose in a culture other than my own.  I am very aware of the kind of exploitation this colleague was decrying, but I felt like her critique didn’t leave any room for the genuine spiritual experience. 

Multiple people have spoken to me in the past few months about the West’s need for the East’s spiritual teachings, and from the perspective of both Eastern teachers and Western students (often teachers in their own right).  I won’t lie, I do think there is a bunch of crap written mainly for profit and/or self-aggrandizement out there, AND there’s a bunch of other stuff that’s just racist, exploitative, and/or fetishized, but I really don’t think that’s all it’s about.  I am inclined to think (that’s the phrase I always want to use when talking about this stuff, because it leaves space for uncertainty and new information) that it really is part of a needed balancing-out. 

In astrological lore, the tagline for the sign of Aquarius is “I know,” which is sometimes rewritten as “enlightenment.”  If by enlightenment we mean the refinement of our ability to perceive things as they are, and our wisdom in knowing how to act, and our hearts in their ability to live in harmony with our fellow-beings, then yes — I guess I would say that the “Age of Aquarius” is a pointer in the right direction.

Hope this is of some interest!

Peace to all,

Heartland Soul