I have been watching the news like everyone else, and have been saddened about the hate that is building around us. This hate and fragmentation drives the people involved and our society towards fear and away from the safety and wholeness that supports health and thriving.
The recent killing of 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue brings home the presence of this fear. For these citizens, their synagogue, their city and our country, we mourn and stand in solidarity.
Pipe bombs to people that differ politically or socially. Racially-motivated shootings after failing to gain entry to a predominantly African-American church. Shootings in a synagogue.
Underlying this outbreak of violence in our country and in our communities is desperation, fragmentation, social isolation and fear.
We see this in health, too.
Based on ground-breaking research by Anne Case and Sir Angus Deaton, deaths of despair and hopelessness are increasing in 45 to 55 year-old non-Hispanic whites with a high school education or less. This self-perceived loss of social capital and social isolation shortens their lifespan.
The environment of fragmentation, fear and hopelessness makes us sick – physically, socially and communally.
I think this perception is largely drawn from our ego, which is critical for our survival and life as an individual. There is nothing intrinsically evil or bad about our ego, but this drive for individual experience and existence needs to be balanced with the unity and wholeness of spirit.
Today, there is a palpable lack of balance in the ego and spirit.
I, like many, hope that this transition to balance is developing and the negative energy, hate and fear we see spewing out of our country and world are vestiges of a time that is passing.
In this perspective, not only are we seeing more fear and desperation in the hate-driven episodes I have outlined above, but also in the fearsome weather that is occurring throughout our world.
There is a transition of cycles for our earth.
The Mayans suggested that the end of the world would occur in December 2012. Well, that didn’t happen, but what did happen is the synchronous transitioning of two cosmic cycles. One of 2150 years and one of 25,800 years – the so called “precession of the equinoxes.”
Although the impact and exact timing is debated, evidence supports the Earth’s astrological transitioning to Aquarius from Pisces.
While that is unimportant to most, there is an interesting potential to what we see today. During this time, it has been predicted that our earth will transform from one of materialism, ego and power (Pisces) to one of community, brotherhood and unity (Aquarius).
We are likely in a transition point now, and whether you believe the frame of the importance of the precession of the equinoxes to outcomes of our planet, this concept has been handed down from many cultures, including the Mayan, Hopi, Chinese, Celtic and Egyptian.
While I don’t truly know the real reason for the spike in negative energy and fear, I believe in the importance and maintenance of balance in nature – in physics (every action has an equal and opposite reaction); in our nervous system (the autonomic nervous system is a balance between our sympathetic and parasympathetic systems); computer system (0’s and 1’s); nature (the golden ratio – Phi is 1.618, which is the balance and symmetry we see as beauty); and complex systems (where most events follow a power-law distribution that creates a logarithmic relationship between intensity and frequency of events).
I think we are in the transition of regaining our balance at this critical time of our planet and country.
From the energy of power and control to balanced energy of acceptance and connection.
We need to keep awakening to this balance.
Away from isolation and fragmentation to unity and wholeness.
From fear to love.
From seeing us as separate egos to connected spirits.
The Sufi mystic and poet Rumi said it well:
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.”
Almost Heaven.