I wrote this several years ago, just found it, and felt it was relevant for what's happening now. This is the first half of the article.
It just happens, as I begin to write this, that a strong cold wind has come up, gusting in off the Pacific. My wind chimes are banging wildly and the trees are dancing madly. When I feel out into the world with my intuition, I can sense the power of this primal element expressing everywhere, under the surface, at a global level. The Winds of Change really are pushing on us relentlessly, blowing down dead branches and leaves, clearing the way for a new kind of perception and a new world.
Most people simply wrap their belief systems more tightly around their shoulders and tuck heads to chest to try to make progress against the gale. How many of us understand the advantages of surrendering to the wind instead, of letting ourselves be blown free of clinging debris and swept headlong and trusting into new territory? Your capacity for this surrendered interrelationship with the irresistible force of profound change—what we could also call evolution, enlightenment, or self-realization—will determine how easily and quickly your new reality can materialize. But surrender can seem like an insane act today.
Catching Up with John
I was having a catch-up conversation with my friend John Wallace in Santa Fe, New Mexico, some months ago, and asked if he'd been noticing the waves of intensity hitting us lately. He laughed. Everyone he knew had been irritable, panic-stricken, and experiencing failure of their tried-and-true methods for surviving. This jibed with my observations of people facing their worst-case scenarios, even fighting the feeling of being possessed by negative entities. He and his girlfriend had decided this was an important time of "soul-crafting," when we must decide who we want to be, and how we want to be, unaided by anyone else. "No one can do this work for us," he said. I agreed and thought this was a great term to describe what's happening underneath the dissolution of the outmoded parts of ourselves.
And yet, I thought, we don't need to be alone, isolated, or martyred to do this work, as our drama-loving, either-or minds might have us believe. We can, and must, be involved in the world, connected to the flow of events, and the influence of other people—so the new selves we are crafting will be whole, complete, and integrated.
I mention John because his story, up until the sudden end of his life in early December last year, epitomizes many salient points and probably parallels the lessons many of us are consciously or unconsciously working on these days. John was (is?) a kind of soulmate to me, one of those people we don't necessarily talk to very often, but when we do, we put each other back into an effortless alignment with our best self and reestablish our gratefulness for being alive.
John had been working diligently for quite a few years to create an environmentally sound real estate development and learning center called Na'avoteh, just outside Santa Fe, which would exemplify the principles needed to regreen the desert. First among them was respect for water and everything represented by the divine feminine. To that end, he and his colleagues created the Rainmaking Institute, to help foster the work of today's rainmakers. Native American rainmakers were able to call in the rain because they LOVED the rain, John once told me. The rain came to them because of love. Similarly, today, we need to call forth new life because we love it, and those who know how to work with love as a practical, powerful force to create societal change are the new rainmakers—and we need more of them!
In his process learning to facilitate the manifestation of a huge project, and to do it in a way that was in harmony with the principles of feminine wisdom, not via sheer cleverness, charm, and will power, John learned many lessons about other people's fear. I know it was taxing to him, and continually prompted him to examine the limitations in himself that he hadn't previously seen. He was committed to what I call "radical honesty," to addressing what was real in every situation, and to get to the core so the soul, or spirit, could facilitate the easy flow of unfolding. I wonder if this noble "keeping on" in the face of fear's grip tired him out.
Battling Our Flaws Slows Us Down
In our conversation, he told me how he'd had a bodywork session to help clear a block he thought he had. The bodyworker said to him, "You are so much bigger than your perceived flaw, and giving the flaw energy by battling with it only slows you down." We talked about how we don't get comfort from our mental constructs now, from the way we organize the world, or identify ourselves. How it's actually painful when we buy into any way of being limited—the false constraints of our own perception. "We need FREEDOM!" John exclaimed. "We need to bust our collective stories."
"We're unraveling, he said. "Battling our flaws only slows our release. We have to be people who demand honesty and courage, and that requires openness and humility—to walk the path of truth. At this time," he continued, "there's no room for anything that gets in the way of soul alignment. Anything that doesn't bring us fully alive is too small for us. We cannot allow a diminishment of ourselves now."
He went on, saying, "There are non-negotiables that we've negotiated anyway. This is the pain today, and it's intolerable. Compromise is like kryptonite for us! We have to think: What can we let go of that doesn't support full aliveness? And yet all the interferences are so minor compared to who we are and what we're built for."
Things Don't Seem as Spiritual as They Used To
I paused and digested John's words, then said, "I remember when I started on my spiritual path thirty years ago, I had a great, dramatic yearning for a higher reality. Everything was tinged with spiritual growth, and the magic of accessing the higher, more intangible dimensions. Now, life often seems so ordinary. I worry at times that I'm being worn down by the world."
John said, "Yes, but what used to feel spiritual is gone, because we're actually inside those dimensions now, and they're in us. We're in the Mystery in a new, full way. We used to get rushes from what was beyond our reach, what was ideal and special. But now we're BEING the dimensions! And it's so huge and vast!" We got excited. I spoke of how we really have grown exponentially without realizing it, how we embody so much more than we realize because we don't recognize the "gap" anymore. We are truly like Zen monks, alive within the sacred that includes answering email, waiting on hold for customer service, and changing the furnace filter.
This was my last conversation with John. When we said goodbye, he—as he always did—made sure he told me how important I was to him and what an influence I'd been in his life over the years. Our conversations were always complete emotionally; we knew where we stood with each other, how we felt.
Copyright by Penney Peirce, 2010
It just happens, as I begin to write this, that a strong cold wind has come up, gusting in off the Pacific. My wind chimes are banging wildly and the trees are dancing madly. When I feel out into the world with my intuition, I can sense the power of this primal element expressing everywhere, under the surface, at a global level. The Winds of Change really are pushing on us relentlessly, blowing down dead branches and leaves, clearing the way for a new kind of perception and a new world.
Most people simply wrap their belief systems more tightly around their shoulders and tuck heads to chest to try to make progress against the gale. How many of us understand the advantages of surrendering to the wind instead, of letting ourselves be blown free of clinging debris and swept headlong and trusting into new territory? Your capacity for this surrendered interrelationship with the irresistible force of profound change—what we could also call evolution, enlightenment, or self-realization—will determine how easily and quickly your new reality can materialize. But surrender can seem like an insane act today.
Catching Up with John
I was having a catch-up conversation with my friend John Wallace in Santa Fe, New Mexico, some months ago, and asked if he'd been noticing the waves of intensity hitting us lately. He laughed. Everyone he knew had been irritable, panic-stricken, and experiencing failure of their tried-and-true methods for surviving. This jibed with my observations of people facing their worst-case scenarios, even fighting the feeling of being possessed by negative entities. He and his girlfriend had decided this was an important time of "soul-crafting," when we must decide who we want to be, and how we want to be, unaided by anyone else. "No one can do this work for us," he said. I agreed and thought this was a great term to describe what's happening underneath the dissolution of the outmoded parts of ourselves.
And yet, I thought, we don't need to be alone, isolated, or martyred to do this work, as our drama-loving, either-or minds might have us believe. We can, and must, be involved in the world, connected to the flow of events, and the influence of other people—so the new selves we are crafting will be whole, complete, and integrated.
I mention John because his story, up until the sudden end of his life in early December last year, epitomizes many salient points and probably parallels the lessons many of us are consciously or unconsciously working on these days. John was (is?) a kind of soulmate to me, one of those people we don't necessarily talk to very often, but when we do, we put each other back into an effortless alignment with our best self and reestablish our gratefulness for being alive.
John had been working diligently for quite a few years to create an environmentally sound real estate development and learning center called Na'avoteh, just outside Santa Fe, which would exemplify the principles needed to regreen the desert. First among them was respect for water and everything represented by the divine feminine. To that end, he and his colleagues created the Rainmaking Institute, to help foster the work of today's rainmakers. Native American rainmakers were able to call in the rain because they LOVED the rain, John once told me. The rain came to them because of love. Similarly, today, we need to call forth new life because we love it, and those who know how to work with love as a practical, powerful force to create societal change are the new rainmakers—and we need more of them!
In his process learning to facilitate the manifestation of a huge project, and to do it in a way that was in harmony with the principles of feminine wisdom, not via sheer cleverness, charm, and will power, John learned many lessons about other people's fear. I know it was taxing to him, and continually prompted him to examine the limitations in himself that he hadn't previously seen. He was committed to what I call "radical honesty," to addressing what was real in every situation, and to get to the core so the soul, or spirit, could facilitate the easy flow of unfolding. I wonder if this noble "keeping on" in the face of fear's grip tired him out.
Battling Our Flaws Slows Us Down
In our conversation, he told me how he'd had a bodywork session to help clear a block he thought he had. The bodyworker said to him, "You are so much bigger than your perceived flaw, and giving the flaw energy by battling with it only slows you down." We talked about how we don't get comfort from our mental constructs now, from the way we organize the world, or identify ourselves. How it's actually painful when we buy into any way of being limited—the false constraints of our own perception. "We need FREEDOM!" John exclaimed. "We need to bust our collective stories."
"We're unraveling, he said. "Battling our flaws only slows our release. We have to be people who demand honesty and courage, and that requires openness and humility—to walk the path of truth. At this time," he continued, "there's no room for anything that gets in the way of soul alignment. Anything that doesn't bring us fully alive is too small for us. We cannot allow a diminishment of ourselves now."
He went on, saying, "There are non-negotiables that we've negotiated anyway. This is the pain today, and it's intolerable. Compromise is like kryptonite for us! We have to think: What can we let go of that doesn't support full aliveness? And yet all the interferences are so minor compared to who we are and what we're built for."
Things Don't Seem as Spiritual as They Used To
I paused and digested John's words, then said, "I remember when I started on my spiritual path thirty years ago, I had a great, dramatic yearning for a higher reality. Everything was tinged with spiritual growth, and the magic of accessing the higher, more intangible dimensions. Now, life often seems so ordinary. I worry at times that I'm being worn down by the world."
John said, "Yes, but what used to feel spiritual is gone, because we're actually inside those dimensions now, and they're in us. We're in the Mystery in a new, full way. We used to get rushes from what was beyond our reach, what was ideal and special. But now we're BEING the dimensions! And it's so huge and vast!" We got excited. I spoke of how we really have grown exponentially without realizing it, how we embody so much more than we realize because we don't recognize the "gap" anymore. We are truly like Zen monks, alive within the sacred that includes answering email, waiting on hold for customer service, and changing the furnace filter.
This was my last conversation with John. When we said goodbye, he—as he always did—made sure he told me how important I was to him and what an influence I'd been in his life over the years. Our conversations were always complete emotionally; we knew where we stood with each other, how we felt.
Copyright by Penney Peirce, 2010
