Notes On A New Page

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Yesterday came and went, and we’re still here (seriously, did you know anyone who thought we wouldn’t be?). We’ve arrived in a new baktun or, at minimum, a newly turned solstice. If we allow for the bigger picture, we have a clean sheet, waiting to be written upon. As Eric pointed out yesterday, the initial thrust of consciousness at such a moment leaves its mark. What we write on this new page will set the pattern, establish the weave of another long historical tapestry that our ancestors, far into the future, will study. On this first day, then, we take a snapshot of ourselves for posterity.

Those who pay attention to cycles — astrologers, mathematicians, historians, mystics — will validate the special qualities of this 2012 solstice. On the shortest day of the year, yesterday, anticipating the longest night, pagans everywhere celebrated the beginning of winter and the gradual turn from dark back to light. That works for me as a metaphor for this moment. Gradual is the key word: gradual, as in “the fog is gradually lifting, the light is gradually dawning, the mood is gradually shifting.” Gradual as in “building to a tipping point.”

A few years back, Eric asked staff what they thought the 2012 end-point might bring us, and my estimate then was that it was a Hundredth Monkey event. I believe that’s what we’re looking at today, that point where more than half of us here on beloved Planet Terra can be defined as decent, loving souls, vibrating at a resonance that can no longer ignore systemic darkness; that can tolerate nothing less than compassion, kindness and peace in the coming era or allow injustice and cruelty to define us any longer. This isn’t Congress, needing more than a majority; we already have our 51%.

I know. You’re looking around you and wondering what I see that you don’t, but it isn’t the actualization of these hoped-for things that marks this 2012 Turning. It’s the desire for them. Energy follows intent. It must. And great change only comes when remaining the same is so painful it can no longer be endured. Surely, we’re there. Years of legislative stonewall, of dismal job numbers and income inequality, of continuing violence looping through our ceaseless militarism, of safety-net issues crumbling when we need them most, seem to have pushed us past the point of fear and on to decision.

The gun lobby, standing surrogate for the other big institutions that run our lives, felt the heat of national reproach this week but — I can’t help but feel — too late in this game. The Rubicon has been crossed, the school shootings crossing that final T, dotting that final I. And while we’ve had so many similar events in this short century — Tucson, Aurora, Virginia Tech — this last one was like the final homeopathic dose, establishing a fledgling immunity within the body politic. You’ve felt it, yourself, haven’t you? The refusal to retreat on what is right, sane, ethical? A strengthening of spine, an opening of heart? A rising up?

Which is not to say that we’re all on the same page, of course. The hatespeak is still out there, the same repressive psychosexual nonsense everywhere we turn. A Mormon woman who started a movement to encourage her sisters in Utah to wear pants to church, especially during the cold winter months, has received death threats. And Charlotte Allen, over at the National Review, thinks that approving Easy Bake ovens as playthings for our little boys leads to events like school shootings, discouraging the beefy gun-slinging masculinity necessary to keep us safe. Echoing her thoughts, the NRA finally put a face on their defiance, disparaging all things girly and unarmed in a demand for cops to patrol our schools, armed with deadly force. Guns don’t kill, people do, so they say — and they will put ‘good people,’ armed to the teeth, in place to eliminate ‘bad’ ones. We were ahead of the curve, here in Missouri, as one of our legislators has put forth a bill making it mandatory for first graders to attend a National Rifle Association training program, getting the kiddies indoctrinated early.

The Pope’s also been on a roll lately, assuring the faithful that gay marriage, abortion and euthanasia are all a threat to families, and by extension, world peace. It’s interesting that it seems to be humankind in the creator-role that Pope Ratz objects to. “When freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God,” Benedict said, speaking of homosexuality as if it were a personal choice. The Pope is accustomed to directing us all, if not by Gawd Almighty, His Own Self, then certainly in His name, yet the church is failing, and quickly. It’s no surprise. At the base of the Pope’s directive is the same rationale that holy men of the tribe have asserted since time began: we must never ever supplant God’s authority — or theirs, as His holy representative — with our own.

It’s always about authority, about an unyielding, punishing patriarchy that must enforce the moral center or else all humankind will fly into the eye of chaos. Perhaps most definitive of this new turning is that we all know — yes, we do — that’s crap. These are all old paradigm issues, old ideas no longer applicable to the majority of us. These are not even issues that have the moral equivalency of war and military spending, of occupation and geopolitical adventurism, of corporate raiding or predatory capitalism. In a new paradigm, it is our duty to question such authority on all levels. In a new era, it’s our responsibility to leave it behind. Evolution has already begun, the process is already in place.

In 1999 – while we partied, unaware — the covert war on science, on nuance, on intellect and ethics — was readying for a pounce. It landed with all four paws, fangs bared, in the unlikely person of George W. Bush, a self-proclaimed man of simple tastes. Unfortunately, simple has its virtues; simplistic seldom does. His simplistic philosophy and compliant followers gave us a period of delusion that is even now grinding itself into bits under the harsh edges of inevitable reality. To the newly awakened — and the poll numbers show remarkable changes in just the last few months — the remnants of that philosophy now sound like cruelty and madness. Ask House Speaker, John Boehner, unable to get a symbolic up/down vote on a tax hike for even the richest three-tenths of one percent of Americans, leading some Republicans to break lockstep and call Bagger legislators “extremists.” Boehner says he’s not worried about his leadership position, but surely he is, given this thwarted attempt to avoid the fiscal cliff. This is outright party rebellion, skidding on the fear of crossing Grover Nordquist or the FOX-watchers at home.

Yet here we are, still wrestling issues the majority of the public thinks absurd, on the day after the world didn’t end but the energy of an old paradigm closed. Nothing ended with a bang, and nothing began that way, either: life is a gradual process. Much as the world didn’t get gobbled by a black hole or death star, Fifth Element-style, because things tend to move along, bit by bit, not so conveniently dramatic. It’s a huge conceit to pretend that everything can change in an instant — POOF — as in a fairy tale, a fable, a movie by Disney (who built a vast financial empire based on “wishing on a star.”) Anyone who understands nuance — the complexity of thought, the sequence of events, the larger picture — must surely understand that things move through a process, step by step, gathering speed and energy. What might seem sudden has only been simmering on the back burner, building form and function long before it appears.

We’ve seen how this works: the Republican coup that installed GW took years in covert planning and piece-by-piece legislation, paving the way. The NRA has spent millions to portray government as the enemy we must arm against, helping split the nation. The neocon movement that is swiftboating Chuck Hagel’s possible nomination for Defense Secretary has spent years shoring up their support for Israel’s dominance in the Middle East, enlisting fundamentalist Christians in their movement so that they have the clout they need to press forward against Iran. Everything that is at play today, began somewhere in the past.

And that’s the secret we must remember. What we begin today will find its place in a healed tomorrow, so we might spend some time during this holiday season thinking about what we would like to write on this new page of ours. There are enough of us awake, now, to insist that we build a better world for one another. Enough of us have been shaken to our very roots by a decade of disaster and despair, our hearts broken open in empathy and compassion. Some of us have had to pay an awful price for our wisdom. Perhaps you saw the interview with the heartbroken father who spoke tearfully of his murdered child and the devastation to his community on news recently, hoping that the event itself would, eventually, “inspire us to be better, more compassionate and more humble people.” May God/dess mend his heart and grant his wish.

It’s pretty simple, really. I know you know this, it’s not news. The holiday season is the perfect time to really FEEL what our new era must begin to gather to itself: service, kindness, unconditional love and collaboration. We cannot create it until we feel it. Visit the Facebook page of Warren Tidwell, who was inspired to contribute 26 random acts of kindness, one for each victim in Newtown. As Mr. Tidwell put it, “I felt empowered, instead of the helplessness, hurt, and fear. I can put the good back in the world that was taken from it.” Ultimately, we do these things for our selves, and until we can come to grips with what happens WITHIN us as we do — until we love ourselves enough to truly love one another — we will remain cold unto death in our overwhelmed brains, waiting to be warmed by the love that inspires us. It’s time for #26acts.

So now, on this new day, pay little attention to what everything looks like (or doesn’t look like) on the news, dearhearts. Don’t give your power away to what seems dark or fearsome or discouraging anymore. See your surroundings with your inner eye, witness your lives as you would have them be if you were in love with the world, knew it to be in love with you. Day by day, deliberately put that intention into your heart and allow it to grow. Did we pass into some new way of being yesterday? Yes, as we allow it, when we commit to it, as we put our intent in place and add our solemn pledge to leave what is old behind, allow what is hateful and hurtful to belong to our past and not our future. As we begin again.

We can do this, we can love our way into a higher expression of humanity. It’s what we came for.

And — because all this is happening concurrent with the 2012 holiday season — I’d like to leave you with the same wishes I sent you in my Christmas piece from 2009. Nothing’s changed since then, or, more likely, EVERYTHING’s changed, except what’s timeless (and you’ll know that when you feel it.) For all of us, then, may we have more of the extraordinary heart-expansion and awareness that have brought us so far together, to begin a new page:

May you go deeper. May you reach higher. May you fearlessly seize what is good and loving and share it generously with those around you. May you find within yourself those satisfactions you’ve been taught to seek outside of yourself. May you realize how beloved you are, a child of God and a powerful spiritual entity, busy creating what tomorrow will look like for yourself and the rest of us.

May you enter the stillness long enough to know it’s not empty but full to brimming with all the beauty you’ve forgotten about yourself, with wisdom and truth. May you have a holy moment, a revelation that illuminates your connection with this lovely planet, and the oneness of all the life forms that reside upon her. Whatever your traditions, your belief system or your religious expression, all of us at Planet Waves extend our wish that your holiday practice brings you the joy of peace, love and Light.