Thursday, February 08, 2007
A Letter from Genevieve
Gopi Krishna was a firm believer in the evolution of human consciousness, as I am also. True, the "outside news" is not good. We often experience a state of anxiety and apprehension, no matter how exciting and fulfilling our inner lives. We feel under constant threat, as if the next event may be worse than the last. These are the realities we live with. To deny them is futile.
Yet, I think there are grounds for real hope. One is the growing spiritual movement, spreading inexorably across the earth. Change itself is possible in astounding ways. Think of the great societal transformations in such areas as civil rights, gay rights, human rights under oppressive regimes. At one point not so many years ago America and the then U. S. S. R. had great weapons of mass destruction aimed at one another. Then the U. S. S. R collapsed , the Berlin wall fell, and the world itself was a different place.
None of these changes was really predictable from the perspective of the preceding years. Yet change did occur.
Last night I watched a DVD from the shaman Alberto Villoldo (from Netflix, "Healing the Luminous Body"). Villoldo told us that the Hopis still pray daily for the right "possible future." As Villoldo explained, the possible future is different from the "probable future," and can be brought into being against what seem to be great odds.
I think that deep spiritual transformation can occur on this planet, and indeed will occur no matter what--even if we are all blasted completely out of our material bodies and amped up into other states of being, such as the subtle body or the luminous body, neither of which requires a material base. As far as we know, such beings already exist and are among us, doing all they can to show us the way.
The following is an e-mail I received recently from my friend Genevieve Levitt, who captues most vividly the widespread sense of unease. It will be followed (tomorrow) by a poem I wrote recently which emphasizes that our best hope now lies within ourselves, for we are the saviors we have been longing for.
Dear Dorothy,
Last night I went to a discussion group called "the Philosopers' Cafe" and the "starting" topic was "Hello, I am Bill and I am suffering from Western Civilization". Anyways, as all good discussions tend to do, the topic was only a starting point. One of the observations made (near the end of the evening) was that, no matter how we viewed the world, in good or bad ways, and no matter how much we had hope for the world, there is an underlying sorrow that most people experience even while doing things they enjoy (such as being in nature, connecting with others, etc.) or when things are going well. Something so deep that it is "in our gut". I said I thought it might be partly because we know that we have the potential to make the world so much better and that, looking at the world the way it truly is today, we know that we have somehow failed to live up to our collective potential.
Reading your poem also makes me aware that there is, inherent in our perception of beauty, or maybe the beauty of nature, such a deep longing that it becomes "sorrow". Like we have a glimpse of something so much more than, what? Ourselves? That which could be? The immensity of the order of things? The way all things should be?
I believe, with every fiber of my being that there is an order to everything that is and, when we sorrow, it is both a longing for that order to be everywhere and in every part of our lives and a recognition that it is not. When there is unkindness, lack of compassion, an ending to a loving relationship, pollution, carelessness, greed, even the smallest act of hurt towards another (life, order, beauty. . .) or a recognition of how things should be, we mourn. As though a mythical Eden was our birthright and we are always on the outside looking in. We create ugliness out of beauty, chose cruelty over kindness, hurt those we love, reject those who need us the most, and then, when we see how things should be, we mourn because we have somehow failed. The absolute rightness of some things illuminates the lack of the rightness of others in the same way the light makes us aware of the lack of light or darkness. Can you imagine a world where kindness, compassion, thoughtfulness, love, consideration, justice, beauty, etc. came before greed, profit, being right, being first, recognition, control, discrimination, prejudice....that is the "paradise on earth" I believe we mourn. There is more I "feel", but it is hard to put in words.
Anyways, just some thoughts that came out of your poem. Thanks!
Love,
Genevieve
(Above copyright Genevieve Levitt)
Yet, I think there are grounds for real hope. One is the growing spiritual movement, spreading inexorably across the earth. Change itself is possible in astounding ways. Think of the great societal transformations in such areas as civil rights, gay rights, human rights under oppressive regimes. At one point not so many years ago America and the then U. S. S. R. had great weapons of mass destruction aimed at one another. Then the U. S. S. R collapsed , the Berlin wall fell, and the world itself was a different place.
None of these changes was really predictable from the perspective of the preceding years. Yet change did occur.
Last night I watched a DVD from the shaman Alberto Villoldo (from Netflix, "Healing the Luminous Body"). Villoldo told us that the Hopis still pray daily for the right "possible future." As Villoldo explained, the possible future is different from the "probable future," and can be brought into being against what seem to be great odds.
I think that deep spiritual transformation can occur on this planet, and indeed will occur no matter what--even if we are all blasted completely out of our material bodies and amped up into other states of being, such as the subtle body or the luminous body, neither of which requires a material base. As far as we know, such beings already exist and are among us, doing all they can to show us the way.
The following is an e-mail I received recently from my friend Genevieve Levitt, who captues most vividly the widespread sense of unease. It will be followed (tomorrow) by a poem I wrote recently which emphasizes that our best hope now lies within ourselves, for we are the saviors we have been longing for.
Dear Dorothy,
Last night I went to a discussion group called "the Philosopers' Cafe" and the "starting" topic was "Hello, I am Bill and I am suffering from Western Civilization". Anyways, as all good discussions tend to do, the topic was only a starting point. One of the observations made (near the end of the evening) was that, no matter how we viewed the world, in good or bad ways, and no matter how much we had hope for the world, there is an underlying sorrow that most people experience even while doing things they enjoy (such as being in nature, connecting with others, etc.) or when things are going well. Something so deep that it is "in our gut". I said I thought it might be partly because we know that we have the potential to make the world so much better and that, looking at the world the way it truly is today, we know that we have somehow failed to live up to our collective potential.
Reading your poem also makes me aware that there is, inherent in our perception of beauty, or maybe the beauty of nature, such a deep longing that it becomes "sorrow". Like we have a glimpse of something so much more than, what? Ourselves? That which could be? The immensity of the order of things? The way all things should be?
I believe, with every fiber of my being that there is an order to everything that is and, when we sorrow, it is both a longing for that order to be everywhere and in every part of our lives and a recognition that it is not. When there is unkindness, lack of compassion, an ending to a loving relationship, pollution, carelessness, greed, even the smallest act of hurt towards another (life, order, beauty. . .) or a recognition of how things should be, we mourn. As though a mythical Eden was our birthright and we are always on the outside looking in. We create ugliness out of beauty, chose cruelty over kindness, hurt those we love, reject those who need us the most, and then, when we see how things should be, we mourn because we have somehow failed. The absolute rightness of some things illuminates the lack of the rightness of others in the same way the light makes us aware of the lack of light or darkness. Can you imagine a world where kindness, compassion, thoughtfulness, love, consideration, justice, beauty, etc. came before greed, profit, being right, being first, recognition, control, discrimination, prejudice....that is the "paradise on earth" I believe we mourn. There is more I "feel", but it is hard to put in words.
Anyways, just some thoughts that came out of your poem. Thanks!
Love,
Genevieve
(Above copyright Genevieve Levitt)
