The Message in the
Madness
Endlessly
it drones on...economic times are tough and predicted to get
worse before they get better. There's no doubt that many of us have
felt the financial pinch and some have felt the dagger. Yet, others,
who've experienced no drastic changes at all, are
wondering what all the bellyaching is about.
But,
regardless of the moment you currently find yourself in, the world's
wake-up call is loudly gonging throughout the planet. All those prophetic signs on street
corners held by bleary-eyed messengers were right, "The end is near."
Not the end
of life...but have no doubt about it, it will be the end of life as
we know it. And in my view, that's not such a bad thing. In fact,
I think it's the best piece of news I've heard in a long time. From my
vantage point, in this life as we now know it, we've created
some pretty sorry messes. And now our collective neglect and
procrastination in dealing with our economic over-indulgence,
blind-eye to corporate corruption, not-my-problem attitude toward
drugs and violence, have elevated the warning signs to an imminent crisis.
It's beyond
most of us to know how to fix the world's state of economy, plagues,
poverty, hunger, or political conflicts. We have a hard enough time
attending to our own lives. Yet there is a real cause-effect
connection between our individual life situations and those of
humanity at large. We are each a microcosm in the macrocosm of the world. "As
within, so without," the second
Hermetic Principle, Correspondence,
tells us that the world's condition is reflected in the inner world we
call our individual lives. That the anger we feel toward another is a
scaled equivalent to the war waged between one country and
another.
From an
energy perspective, a macrocosm like war is the accumulation of
individual warring (angry) energies. Each angry thought we have adds
to this collective energy. Gandhi said, "Be the change you wish to see
in the world." He was working from the Principle of Correspondence.
Stop the war in your own heart and you'll lessen the collective power
of war in the world.
Science
aligns with the Hermetic philosophy as shown in the otherworldly
beauty of fractals. A
fractal is generally a
geometric shape that can be divided
into parts, each of which is a miniature copy of the whole, appearing
similar at all levels of magnification.
One of the most famous fractals is named for the Polish mathematician,
Benoit Mandelbrot, commonly viewed as
the Father of Fractal Geometry. If you look at the Mandelbrot fractal
below you can see that the entire image is duplicated around its
perimeter in smaller versions. If you click
here, you'll see a sequence of
close-ups demonstrating how the pattern repeats itself -
arguably into infinity.
Mandelbrot Fractal
We've all experienced
fractals in our lives. Just look closely at the fern below. Each side
frond is a smaller replication of the whole fern. And within each side
front is yet a smaller duplication.
Or take the Romanesco
cauliflower below. Each of the flowerets is a miniature representation
of the whole.
So, what on earth has all this fractal business got to do with the
economic tough times we're facing? Plenty. The pattern of the world's
condition begins in the patterns of our own behavior and beliefs. As
long as we continue to hang on to the attitudes and actions that
created our current predicament, we'll continue to experience turmoil.
Turmoil, chaos,
uncertainty, change...these are all signals of an old way of being
passing away and a new way being birthed. Like any birth, there is
pain and joy. First the pain - then the joy. The degree of pain we
experience is completely proportional to our level of resistance to
the necessary shift. And the degree of joy we experience flows from
our willingness to let go and move forward.
Many of us had it quite
good in the passing world of consumerism. We bought what we wanted,
when we wanted. When our infatuation with a new possession wore off,
we simply got a newer, bigger, better one. Bigger houses; more
powerful cars; more expensive wardrobes. Gadgets overflowed every
Victorian armoire drawer and three-car garage.
We didn't pay much
attention to our gluttonous use of the world's resources; especially
in wealth-crazed countries like the US. As far as we were concerned
oil and trees and water and air were abundant and eternal. We were
entitled, selfish, and ignorant. And for some, like the media-flogged bank
CEOs that continue to spend lavishly while begging the US government
for bail-out funds, it appears that entitlement will die slowly.
Today, that arrogant and
wasteful way of life is coming to an end and we're feeling the pain -
like an Economic Detox. But on the heels of that pain, if we choose to
see it, is a renewed sense of abundance for what is truly meaningful:
love, relationships, community, responsibility. We can create a new
relationship with our environment; one that honors our resources and
considers our legacy to future generations with each decision we make.
We can create a new relationship to one another; one that honors
differences and embraces common ground.
Pain is always caused by
resistance to what is. It's time we wake up and recognize the
unconscious path we've blindly trod. We would do well to return to our
human and spiritual roots; be truly grateful for the soul-breathing
basics of life.
Everyone I speak with feels
some kind of disconnect from their lives. Something's missing. Most
think it's their awareness of their life's purpose. I believe it's
something even more fundamental than that. I think we've forgotten our
interdependent connection to life itself. We're not not here to be the
users and consumers we've been; we're divine caretakers and holy
benefactors.
Gratitude comes from being
of service to a worthy cause, not from grabbing everything in our
path. If we release what is necessarily passing away, the pain will
stop and we'll awaken to an opportunity to reconnect to our souls and
each other. We are not in destructive times, as the news would have us
believe, we are half way down the birth canal and real life, the one
we were meant to live, is about to begin.
In Joy
Karen
Is it not strange that we fear most that which never happens? 
