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Look Deep Within

coffee, pen and paper with Look Deep Within written on it.

If you're a person who listens to the news fairly regularly, you've noticed a change lately. Specifically, two voices in the media made a difference to how I was feeling. Why? Well, that's a little harder to explain.


Let's start with the level of stress I've experienced for about the last four months. I've been listening to Canadian News as it reported the antics of major players in the upcoming American election. Keep in mind that my spouse has dual citizenship and loves to keep up with news from down south. He was also a reporter and news anchor for a radio station, hence his dedication to all things news. So while I don't watch the news very much, I hear it daily.


I couldn't have imagined news so denigrating and depressing being reported day after day. Some of you will roll your eyes and that's OK. No offence taken because it would be a huge shame if we were all alike, wouldn't it? Others who read this will blame each media's bias. Just as we are biased in varying degrees, we can't rule out media bias. We're all biased. It doesn't make it right or good, but I don't have a solution either.


The tide of stress that enveloped me from exposure to the daily news was so easily felt that, of course, my empath self picked up on it quickly and deeply. You didn't need to be an empath to feel this kind of stress because it was that evident. Yes, I'm talking about the American Election News. The litany of persecution and name-calling was filling my psyche with dis-ease to the point that I had to do something about it. I wore noise cancelling head phones when I'd had enough and my very considerate partner turned the TV off a little more. I also set myself a 72 Day Challenge doing walking meditations daily to clear my head and exist in the present a little more. I immersed myself in the sights, smells and senses of nature which is always soothing.


Our experience of life is not always light and love, but we can always choose how we respond. I ached with people on the screen who seemed to be having difficulties and ached even more for the ridiculer and the ridiculed. How have we found ourselves with two parties that couldn't be farther apart. I found myself thinking about how far those parties might go to win and instant dread swallowed my thoughts.


The first voice that changed everything for me was the incredible decision President Biden made to step aside. Was it a good call? Only time will tell but I wanted to acknowledge that despite enormous pressures from all sides he found the courage and fortitude that must have gone into making that choice. I can't imagine the soul searching he went through as he took a look deep within. My point is, that he DID make time to look deep within. We, humans, love to move forward and up, don't we. If we perceive we're heading down or backwards, we assume we've failed. My personal opinion is we move up and down, forward and backward as we deal with life daily. It's like there's a mid-line and we cross it a lot. The best direction, by the way, is the neutral zone of the present. It's not as easy as it sounds, but it's amazingly powerful.


I think we'll all look back on this moment as one of the most profound moments in history. The world stood still as his message sank in for those able to hear it. He said to the entire world that he stood for something. He came to the conclusion that he would step down because it was the right thing to do. This is not a man who has lost something or failed. Cast your mind back over the last 25 years or even longer. When, in history, has someone made a decision that will affect millions of lives and not gone down a path littered by personal gain, power, money or prestige? This person showed me that integrity is not dead. He showed me by example that there's a better way to be no matter what events are raging around you.


The second voice that changed everything penetrated the airwaves with a clarity I haven't heard since this election cycle started. She was a breath of life moving across the country energizing and uplifting. Suddenly, a clear vision for the country had a voice that didn't berate, put down, or utter half truths. She stood tall and delivered her message about the issues she cared about in a way that was inspiring. Will we listen to her vision for the country or will we listen to those who discredit and malign? Agreement with everything a politician said would be impossible, but is there enough agreement to join the wave of her vision? She changed everything for me because she lifted us up and out of the fear, hate and hopelessness many felt about our political systems. Here's a Thomas Berry quote I believe applies to all of us in this particular time and place. Bill Plotkin, quoting Thomas Berry, explains in his book (citation below) that while transcendence moves away from the world, we can come back down to earth through inscendence by moving forward inspired and guided by our souls.


What is needed is not transcendence but ‘inscendence.’ This descent, this inscendence, is the journey of soul discovery, which can be engaged only by those who have moved beyond the early adolescence in which our society has stalled. Through an individual’s initiatory time in the underworld of soul, she uncovers a dream, a vision, or a revelation that will ‘inspire, guide, and drive the action for the rest of life, as Thomas says. “The dream provides the energy for adult action.

Plotkin, Bill. Nature and the Human Soul (p. 8). New World Library. Kindle Edition.


In essence, our western culture needs to grow up and it would be very difficult to grow up if led by those who don't move forward inspired and guided by their souls. Name calling and manipulation of truth, to the point we don't recognize the truth, is the testing domain of adolescents, not adults, in any kind of arena. Like it or not, my country is linked with our American neighbour. They're an eagle country, a raptor and we're a goose country not wanting to get caught mid-air and fed to eaglets. So I may not be a US citizen, but what happens on either side of the border affects us all.


What lies before us is the opportunity and imperative for a thorough cultural transformation — what ecophilosopher Joanna Macy calls the Great Turning, the transition from an egocentric “Industrial Growth Society” to a soulcentric “Life-sustaining Society, …” Plotkin, Bill. Nature and the Human Soul (p. 4). New World Library. Kindle Edition.


The "Great Turning" is an eco (not ego)-centric and soulcentric path. It's where you and I dig deep to find solutions that benefit humanity and the earth itself knowing we won't exist in the future without a substantial change. I see and feel hope that these two voices have an opportunity to progress the Great Turning for it will take those with extraordinary will and mature souls to help us interpret and encourage this change. It will also take the will of you and I to become more soulcentric for that is the way cultures change. I encourage you to look deep within.












 



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