| THIS IS NO TIME to be asleep at the wheel of your life. Powerful forces of change are at work in and on the universe, and within and upon you. Change means potential progress, potential danger, potential creation, potential growth, potential anything: but the one thing we can bet on is that life will not stay the same for long right now. In such times it is wise to pay attention. We can dream a dream of dull sameness; we can try to force normalcy on our perceptions; we can pretend it is the past, and that he future is not rushing at us. But delusion and denial are not safe activities, and though we may use them to induce a false feeling of security, they always fail. Really, who needs to live like this? Anyone lacking courage, though this is rarely the excuse given. Many claim to want to be more alive, and claim to not know why they can't seem to make it happen. Courage is the French word for hearty, or having heart. I understand that there's not much of a value placed on courage these days. We are encouraged to cower in front of our television sets, heartless, freaked out, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. This is a problem. It takes courage to face your problems, to face your people, to face yourself. But then, once you do it, you are doing it, and the heart grows stronger, and speaks more clearly. I know that it can hurt to wake up. When we wake up, the first thing we see is everything we've lived in denial of: the people and the pain and the things we love to do. If we awoke from the amnesia of our relationships, we would feel all the people we have hurt, and who have hurt us. We would awaken to the devastation of the world, and of the urgent need to act. Delusions, fear, and hatred cloud all this over. But there is something, a state of being, that is beyond the fog. Reality is not a theory, it is an experience. There is a long-forgotten state of life where we are free to be curious, passionate and yearning to express life with one another. This is reality, or one path to it. Looking at the world situation, I don't hold out much hope that our unelected president or all his bosses, underlings and special interests, or a sleeping Congress and a manipulated United Nations, or a grossly deceptive media, are working to create a more righteous world. Well, who the fuck needs them? It's not any politician's job to make my world any better. That is my responsibility and that of the people I call my community. I hold out little hope that there will be the necessary protests or political movements to stop the alleged anti-terrorist bombing of what may well become (and in reality, long ago became) country after country in the Western Hemisphere, Asia and the Southern Hemisphere (where the 'war on drugs' continues to take thousands of lives, and destroy homes and villages, all for nothing but the profit and control of a few). MY HOPE is this: that a few people who really mean it will use this moment to awaken to our loving hearts, our creative power and our unique beauty. I hope that somewhere, somehow in this world, the tribes of the conscious will gather, and celebrate life on Earth, celebrate the Creator, take up the responsibility of choice, and make a better existence for ourselves, and our children. You could be there. |  Above An Atlas
Illustration by Carlos Solórzano Smith |