Category Archives: What on Earth is Happening?

The Path Ahead is Not the Same

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While writing last week’s post about learning to play with consciousness, I was reminded of what Einstein said about problem-solving…

Einstein quote

Heaven knows, we certainly have problems to solve right now. Big ones.

This made me wonder if that’s why we’re facing so many crises all at once—a long-lived pandemic, a brutal war, intense social unrest, massive fires and flooding…

Could it be that this is what was needed to shake us out of our complacency … so we would acknowledge that our way of solving big problems isn’t working?

Will the current chaos finally motivate us to look for a better way?

And does that better way lie in increasing our individual level of consciousness?

So what exactly is consciousness?

I think most of us have at least a vague idea of what consciousness means. If you get curious and google it, you’ll find plenty of rabbit holes to go down.

There are multiple viewpoints and many arguments about who’s right and who’s wrong about consciousness and where it resides. Neurobiologists make the case that consciousness is a physical phenomenon, residing in the brain. Social psychologists view consciousness as a byproduct of the social system a person inhabits.

Eastern and contemplative traditions maintain that ordinary consciousness is just a limited version of a higher awareness that requires specific practices if you want to gain access. For a good overview of all the various viewpoints of consciousness, see An Integral Theory of Consciousness by American philosopher Ken Wilber.

Descriptions I relate to…

It probably won’t surprise you that I’m drawn to more expanded views of consciousness. Here are some descriptions I find useful…

  • Consciousness is the ability of a system to make choices, sourced in awareness, that change physical reality. (From this perspective, each human is considered a system operating within a larger whole.)
  • Consciousness is a deep knowing that all the parts make the whole; that each part has a distinct role in creating a cohesive whole; and that we each must work toward making our contribution while allowing others to do the same.

Where does all of this leave us?

Same-old, same-old will no longer work.

We see that.

We feel that.

And if we’re really honest, we know it in our bones.

Life will never be the same. Thank goodness.

This week’s activation…

If you feel you’ve been pulled off track by the chaos of world events, here’s a chance to reset your energy.

Resetting your energy is a step in the direction of increasing your consciousness. You can do it any time you feel you’re being pulled off track.

 Sit quietly and let energy work for you. Energy activations are designed to enliven (activate) an aspect of your energy field. The words communicate directly with the field, guiding it to a new formation as needed. For more free activations, go to Sarah McCrum’s YouTube channel. For courses and activations for purchase, visit Sarah’s website.

Power-less to Power-full

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When I wrote last week about holding peace in a time of war, I realized that I left a big question dangling—how can we find the inner power to do something so difficult and abstract? Where do we even start?

Play with Consciousness

It doesn’t help to feel powerless. Not in any situation.

Yet powerlessness is often our default position, especially when the problem is enormous and we just don’t know what to do.

Why learning to play with consciousness matters…

We’ve arrived at a time in human evolution where our mind is not enough to help us navigate through the dilemmas we must face. Neither information nor imagination give us the capacity for the level of wisdom we require now.

This need for wisdom is why we must learn to play with consciousness. It is our superpower…and one of the best-kept secrets of modern life.

Going back to the idea of holding peace in wartime, it is the wisdom of consciousness that gives us the capacity to do the difficult thing.

How to play with consciousness…

If you don’t watch any other videos I post, please watch this one. Then apply Sarah McCrum‘s simple steps to increase your consciousness so you’ll know what to do when the way is unclear…

For the activation “On the Edge of the Unknown” go here and scroll to the end.

On the Edge of the Unknown

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I think most of us are tired of hearing the word unprecedented. Yet it’s an accurate description of the time we are in—one where we’re being confronted by things that we have never known or done before.

That’s an enormous challenge, individually and collectively, because we’ve become used to having things under control. And here we are, facing a pandemic, civil unrest, environmental collapse, and a war like we’ve never seen. Worse yet, efforts to bring them under control are having no more than minimal success.

I suspect that most of us feel this is not what we signed up for.

Imagination isn’t enough…

Often we hear that the solution is to use our imagination to envision the better world that we would like to live in. This used  to work, in the early phases of human evolution. But now that we are on the verge of a big leap, imagination is not enough. That’s because imagination is based on what we know from the past. And we are facing a future that is based on premises and priorities that are different from what has gone before.

Energy is the key. And here I’m referring to our ability to work with the universal energy fields in and around us. This is how we will be able to navigate what comes at us in the next few years.

Following the energy…

These days, I make a lot of my decisions by following the energy. That hasn’t always been the case, though. It changed on my first trip to England, in 1994.

I arrived at Schumacher College knowing little about Britain, except that I intended to visit Stonehenge after my course was over. I had decided it would be easier to figure out the logistics when I was there rather than trying to get details while still at home in Canada. That decision was a departure from my usual nail-down-the-details style. But in this case, it seemed the only practical approach. (No internet back then.)

One day at breakfast, I asked how I could get from Schumacher to Stonehenge. The first reply I heard was, “If you’re going up that way, you must go to Wells Cathedral.” So I did—and had a profound inner experience when I walked around a corner and came upon this view…

In the end, I got to Stonehenge, which didn’t speak to me at all. But Avebury and Glastonbury Tor did. Both of them were on the way to Stonehenge.Neither had been in my sights while I was at home in Canada.

From that experience, I came to appreciate the value of being open to possibilities and paying attention to what presents itself—what I now refer to as following the energy.

What to do now?

If control and  imagination aren’t the answers, how do we navigate this “unprecedented time.”?  What will help us move confidently into and through an unknowable future?

The next phase in human evolution is to graduate from relying on imagination and learn how to follow the energy of the future.

The first step is to learn how to work with your own energy, improving the flow inside you so you are able to be more attuned to the surrounding energy, including that of the future.

That said, there are people who are already tapping into the energy of the future and seeing how life could unfold in unimaginable ways. Stay tuned.

This week’s activation…

Energy activations are designed to enliven (activate) an aspect of your energy field. The words communicate directly with the field, guiding it to a new formation as needed. The one below is set to music and the creators, Sarah McCrum and Gary Malkin, call it a Transformance. Sit quietly and let the energy work for you.

For more free activations and transformances, go to Sarah McCrum’s YouTube channel. You’ll find courses and activations for purchase on Sarah’s website.

Finding the best of ourselves.…

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Perhaps it’s my age… I don’t know… But I find myself longing for the kinder, gentler times—when people understood the meaning of statesmanship, discretion, civility, honour, respect.

Can we recover them? I don’t know. I can only hope that we humans, collectively as well as individually, will find the best of ourselves soon enough.

Relief…

My mother raised four children in a small house in the pre-screens era. We made our own entertainment, which meant there was a lot of noise and activity going on practically under her feet. In moments of exasperation, she was known to say, “Would you kids pleeeease be quiet so I can hear myself think?!“ 

I thought it was an odd thing for her to say. Now I get it.

We all need space, away from outer demands, so we can remember who we are, what we stand for, and how we can contribute to the kind of world we want to live in.

In that vein, today’s post offers a delight and a tool for finding the best in ourselves. First the delight…

When I see something as creative as these sculptures, I’m always intrigued about the kind of mind it takes to conceive of such a thing. And I’m reminded that there’s a world of possibilities far beyond my seeing.

And now the tool for finding the best in ourselves. I mentioned this last week—energy activations. It’s hard to describe them, so I’m going to make it easy for you to try them. Starting today, I’ll attach one of Sarah McCrum’s activations at the end of each post. I’ve found them immensely helpful and I’d like you to have a chance for the experience as well. I’m starting with relaxation because that was an eye-opener for me.

Listen once or twice a day. Sit or lie down comfortably,, close your eyes, and…

To find more free activations, go to Sarah McCrum’s YouTube channel. You’ll find courses and activations for purchase on Sarah’s website.