You can sense it in the collective -- fear, anxiety, questioning. We hear it, see it, feel it all around us in these days in which seemingly 'solid', invincible structures and systems are crumbling from within and without. Like the Titanic, the so-called 'unsinkable ship', they're not staying afloat.
Whether we're looking at the not-too-long-ago rumblings that shook the Catholic Church and the Enron-esque falls of celebrated marketplace 'heroes', or the more recent quakes that shook the Titans of Commerce on Wall Street and elsewhere, that which seemed credible, reliable, and invincible, at least by materialistic or Capitalist standards, is buckling from within. Things that seemed beyond reproach or question have proven otherwise; things which seemed solid have proven hollow.
These external happenings are mirrors of internal quakes that bring us to question things we'd taken for granted, things we assumed, things we knitted our identities and worth or value to, things we gave massive amounts of our time and energy to, and perhaps even things we thought we could truly trust.
Having old assumptions, beliefs, and priorities shaken to the core always feels dangerous and radically unsettling, and it is -- to the part of our smaller selves that has learned to equate our value to tangible, impermanent constructs, and learned to place our confidence in shakeable things. But confidence built on such ground is like a house of cards built on sand in the path of the incoming tide.
One of the beliefs that is shaken to the core in times such as these, when so much seems to be dissolving before our eyes, is our belief that material creations -- whether a bank account, a business, a system, a dream home, an economy -- should be static and 'last forever'. It's what we're taught in a culture that has long feared the dissolution part of the natural cycle; a culture that values certain things that are created, accomplished, and amassed, but disdains when things fall apart; a culture in which such things are bound together out of fear and a pervasive anxiety rooted in a belief that there isn't enough to go around.
The wisdom of our ancestors, still reflected in Nature and many Indigenous wisdom traditions, tells another story, though, and it's here that we might turn for guidance now.
Regardless of beliefs that it 'should' be otherwise, all creations and constructs are energy that has been given form through someone's focused intention and action. Yet energy is not static -- it doesn't 'stop'; rather, energy is always moving, it's dynamic, ever-evolving and changing. Energy itself is abundant, even infinite; there is never a lack of energy.
Where we in Western culture have embraced only part of the cycle -- that of creating into form -- many myths tell the story of the whole cycle. Dynamic energy from the great sea of possibility and potential begins its journey into being through an idea or insight which, through focused intention and aligned action brings the idea into material form -- a painting, a book, a business, a system, a nation, a lifestyle, a family.
And from there, energy wants to keep moving -- it wants to grow, evolve, expand, and remain dynamic. If the form no longer serves any purpose, if it's outdated for what is needed at the current time, and/or if the focused intention shifts away from it, the energy wants to be freed to return to the great sea of possibility, where it becomes available for creation into new form.
In many myths, the form that has been created must ultimately be sacrificed back to the Great Spirit, the Divine Mother, the Field of Pure Potentiality; and the old form -- and one's attachment to it -- must be offered up, released, ideally with gratitude for what had been created and experienced as a result.
Like Inanna, the Goddess-Queen in the Sumerian myth, who layer by layer was asked to surrender all of the trappings of her royalty, position, and power with which she identified, we must surrender one by one the constructs that we have identified with, associated power and worth with, and perhaps lived our lives by up until that point.
The ones who finally had arrived at this understanding were said to have become wise and truly powerful -- they'd found the Grail in their nonattachment to form, worldly identifications of prestige, power, or material accumulation, and that energy rose up once again to be born anew, in new forms that served new times and needs. Inanna, in the Sumerian myth, dies to her former identity but is born anew, arising more wise and truly confident, to find her way in the world with her new awareness and strength which become gifts she's able to give to the world.
Our way of living and the systems that drove it, or were deified in it, are no longer sustainable, because they served partial and personal ends where any means were justified but the effects or results were short-sighted and often harmful. Now, a more whole and healthy way of being, living, creating, working, and meeting in the marketplace wants to be born -- a way that takes people, Nature, other living beings and cultures into account; a way that acknowledges that we are all connected, and what we do to one part we do to the whole.
The energy that has been trapped in unhealthy systems and organizations, or impermanent forms, wants to be released and offered back into the sea of possibility, given back to the Divine Mother, so that we might animate and give birth to new forms that serve a greater vision.
How can we move more gracefully during times of dissolution?
In seeing that energy never dies, but simply changes form, we can dance with, rather than be paralyzed with fear by, the changes taking place. We can allow the evolution of form, or the dissolution of form, knowing that energy released will be available to us again. We can seed the new forms with vision and insight that comes from the Wisdom of our Hearts, trusting that all that we need -- being energy waiting to be catalyzed into form by an idea and focused intention -- will arise to support us on our way.
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