Humankind lives a catastrophic moment. I am not talking about the war(s). I am not talking about the virus(es). I am not even talking about the climate and the environment. I am talking about our minds, our bodies, our souls.
In the two last years, I witnessed a lot of exhaustion. People are overwhelmed. I have never heard so many share their anxiety, their panic attacks, their lack of sleep. In the background, auto-immune diseases, diagnosed or undiagnosed. Stress. Stress. Stress. People feel lost. Mothers, Fathers, Sons and Daughters are in deep dismay and exhaustion, all in more or less constant anguish, fear, and distress. Around me, disease, death, conflict, burnout, pain. Around me, noise with silence. And silence with noise. Everything is turned upside down, inside out. I see traces of the human shining stars of hope collapsing. In their body, I sense the cracks.
We all struggle with mind and heart and we sense the non-existent response. We are tired of the void. Life feel meaningless. And we are constantly pressured by the threat and oppression of the powers around us. Exhausted, we search for a miracle solution outside of us. In my body, I am trying to find rest.
In the last two years, things have accelerated. Things have happened to us. Things have happened to me. I saw a lot of people around me change. I have changed.
Attitude. Behaviour. Discourse. Way of life. Body.
I saw a lot of people lose their ground. I am no different. I lost mine as well.
I have watched some of them lose control - often by trying to get more of that.
I often read and hear that one of the most important thing in life is to have your two feet on the ground. One of the most important rituals is to go down on the earth (literally and symbolically) and to become humble. I love that word (humble) and I love that it comes from humus from the latin word for earth/ground. I love that it gives the word Human. Yes, we need to go down into the depth of the soil, to loose the appearance, the pretend, the glitter, and plunge into the mud, and take a turn. When thinking of that concept, I remember Annick de Souzenelle, who is an elder (almost 100 years?), a spiritual teacher and a philosopher. She recently released her last book “Le Grand Retournement” (The Great Turning) where she makes us reflect on the need for a great turning, just as the foetus turns around in its mother's womb in the seventh month, to prepare to go out into a new life. For her, we must metamorphose ourselves internally to find the lost meaning. For her, humanity is for her on the “brink of the abyss.” ….
One of my favourite object of observation are young people. Teenagers. Probably because I have one of those at home! Even if she is one of a kind (Yes, I admit, I do have a MamaBear attitude sometimes!), I can observe glimpses of the lost world in her eyes. Some weeks ago, we went to her (old) school1. We had a meeting with her main teacher. I could feel the dissonance, the grim and the doom of the place. I am not sure how to explain this, but I felt that in there, though the teacher was lovely and caring, my child´s being, her wholeness, her holiness was in danger. Of disappearing. Of withering. Of dying. And I felt - intensely - maybe for the first time - how her soul, my soul, our soul is nomadic, diasporic, emergent, constantly moving into some liminal space trying to find a balance and escape a world that has gone mad…
I am wondering : what I could see if I had the practice and the right eyes to see the invisible, to follow the darkness, the unseen, the muddy waters, would I see that we are moving into another world? Another being? Maybe an ancestor? Maybe a ghost? Would I visit the collective with the same sense of isolation and extinction? Would I follow my heart break….?
Until we humans realise that the inner journey to know the soul and the source, and the outer journey to restore a planet and explore the universe are two aspects of the same enlightened awareness, I am wondering: can we overcome the doom by embracing and caring for each other ?
Every night, I dream of images and events and symbols with quite intense features and revealing messages. Of course, in the morning, it is too soon and too foggy to give a real space to the message; I have to leave the ink to dry - and the images to settle down. But when I come back to them after some days, weeks and months, when I read them back, I am overwhelmed - my heart and my mind are bursting. Reality was there all the time. Beauty was there all the time. It is like when you look at photos of yourself younger. Back then you felt uncomfortable - maybe too this or too that - and now you look at yourself and you see the Beauty. The Truth. The Reality.
Our old women are the dark heart of the forest, the stone womb of the mountain, immanent in the living land itself. They’re elemental beings: storm-hags, fire-keepers, grandmothers of the sea. They show us how to live when everything we thought mattered to us has been stripped away; they teach us how to stay rooted in the face of inevitable death. They teach us how to stand firm in the face of all the culture’s bullshit, and laugh. Sharon Blackie
After that meeting, we decided to change school and to try out Steiner Pedagogy.
Truly beautiful reflection, Sage.
Thank you. And love the Sharon Blackie passage.
Best to you and your daughter and the new school scene!
Sage, this is so beautiful and touched my very human Soul. Bless you and thank you.