Evolutionary Pressure: What Does COVID-19 Want Us to Grow Into
Evolutionary pressures – what does the Universe want us to grow into?
How glaciers formed mountains, racism, corona virus and climate change are evolutionary pressures pushing us into new ways of being. They are symptoms that need to be addressed but unless we continuously want to be symptom-treaters we ultimately need to address root causes. Beneath anxiety, fear, prejudice, discrimination and violence to the other, to the earth and the living ecosystem is a perception and belief that people, plants, animals, earth, ocean, and sky are all distinct, separate entities, disconnected from one other. As we go about trying to meet our needs this consciousness of separation leads to behaviors that cause harm to that which is perceived to be “not-us”. We see a world of scarcity so we fearfully compete with others to make sure we get ours and for those of us with white skin more likely to do so than others with darker skin. Yet still all of us suffer from the ills that beset the world which are evolutionary pressures from the Universe, from God, Spirit, the Tao, pushing us to grow into more of who and what we really are towards realization of our greatest potentials.
Our current situation is analogous to a situation where the various organs within our body perceive and think they are separate from one another. Each is concerned with getting its needs met so they compete with each other for the nutriments they need to survive totally oblivious to the deeper reality that they are inter-wovenly connected and dependent upon each other’s cooperation to survive and thrive. So too we humans compete with each other, along with countries who compete with each other fed by patriotic nationalism where whatever county you live in you are socialized to believe in is the greatest thing going.
I remember starting each day in elementary school on with having to stand and recite the pledge of alliance while one kid held the American flag and god-forbid if the poor kid inadvertently touched it to the ground! Major shaming from the teacher. All based on the perception and belief in separation.
The intensifying crisis of today’s world is pushing us to wake up to recognize that like the organs of the body, all of humanity, all nations separated by arbitrary boundaries based on political realities, are part and parcel of a unified field in which every “thing” is connected and that there is no such thing as a separate thing. The win/lose scenery which is a natural outgrowth of the reality-as-separate paradigm leads to the path we are on now – a small group of mostly white corporate-enriched elitists getting their needs met living in barricaded enclaves guarded by their paid private militias while the rest try to survive amidst the ravages of climate catastrophe and weather-related calamities for whatever scraps might be left over, if anything, after the elites have taken all they want. That is where we are headed if we don’t change and change starts with the root if it is going to meaningful in the long run.
The evolutionary pressures are pushing us to the realization that the only win is a win-win for all, humanity acting cooperatively and wisely throughout the planet, which means in harmony with the powers of nature that give and sustain life. Humanity working together to create systemic structures that provide equal access and support to all in meeting basic needs and the nurturance of creative potentials towards their fullest blossoming and greatest good. We need to reweave the covenant by which our ancestors lived wherein they knew the earth was alive, that all of creation was alive and that they needed to meet their needs in ways that were in respectful relationship with those life-giving powers.
What does that mean in practical terms? It means realizing that there needs to be a balanced reciprocity between what we take from the environment and what we give back, inter-woven with re-learning how to take respectfully. Indigenous life-way traditions are good models for this because they recognize that reciprocity is sacred. They ask permission before they take, they do an honoring and thanks-giving to the spirits of what they take and they take only what they need and they do so in a way that supports that those living seven generations from now will also be able to live and thrive as they are doing. As compared to the rapacious insatiable take, take taking of modern life with no thought of thanking those powers that give the life, the spirits that are the essence underlying the physical manifestation of that which we are taking – animal, plant, oxygen, mineral, fuel etc.
In our indigenous minds there is an ancient heart-memory that knows all of creation is alive, that knows all is connected, that knows we are all related as relatives in the cosmic web of life. How to return to the consciousness of knowing this basic truth of what the universe is and how to work in harmony with the way it works, in reoccurring cosmic cycles of life, death and rebirth? The start is with intention for everything starts with intention. Intend to practice attentive, sensitive, humble receptivity to connect and align with the way life works on this wonderous planet we get to call home: Mother Earth, Turtle, Pachamoma, Gaia. Pay attention to how it all works. Attune to how it all works.
Start with the start of the day. The sun comes up in the east every morning bringing activity energy to the earth which activates the interactions of photosynthesis wherein plants take that energy and create oxygen, animals eat the plants, people eat the plants and animals and we have human life in all its diversity. Without that sunlight, that starlight brought to earth, we do not have life. What about facing the sun each morning, filling up your tanks with its energy, giving thanks for its gift? What about opening to the possibility that contained within the photon beams of light you are taking is not only fuel for life but also information – non-english, non-human information, but cosmic information on how to live a good life in harmony with all life? What if it is an expression of consciousness, a gift from the creative wisdom power of the universe trying to wake us up to the truth of our being?
What if it is telling us to do what it does, to shine? What if it is telling us that the essence of our physical being is not only made of stardust, which we already know from science that our bodies are comprised of atoms which were created in solar explosions, some of which migrated through the heavens to our planet, but that the essence of our being is luminosity? We are made of stardust and we are fueled by stardust. We are luminous beings.
What if we open our minds to understanding that light is in all of us, no matter what the color, shape or size we are, no matter what language we speak, no matter what religious beliefs we have, no matter what our gender or our sexual partnering. What if we recognize the importance of diversity to the resilience and continuation of life? We see with the cancerous spread of mono- farming that if a disease or insight blight attacks the one crop all is lost, but if there is a diversity of crops then there is a greater change of something surviving as compared to nothing. So too with humanity and its diversity of belief systems and social structures. Instead of striving for a mono-way of being and living driven by consumer culture and the billions spent annually manipulating us to buy the same products, the same clothes and consume the same entertainment in a sameness of conformity, how about honoring and nurturing our differences but knowing that not only are we all luminous beings worthy of respect, care and support, we are all in our essence of luminosity made of the energy of love? What if at the deepest essence of our being we are love? What if our love is for giving, to ourselves, to each other, to all beings and to Mother Earth in all her diversity?
What if shining up our stardust means setting an intention to be a love-giver, being a channel for the love-light that is the essence of our being and taking responsibility for the fact that we are constantly extending the energy of our thoughts and feelings out into the energy field of the earth like a broadcasting system? What if we recognize that because we are all connected, what we give to another, what we give to the earth, how we treat animals, forests, oceans, plants, mountains, streams, the air, comes back to us and impacts not only our lives but those of our children and grandchildren and all those yet to come?
What if we cultivate states of consciousness that bring us into experientially knowing our interconnectedness, our unity, our essential oneness? What if we have access to the infinite, creative wisdom of the universe? What if we use that access aligned in a shared intention of creating a Healthy and Just, Peaceful and Free, Beautiful and Diverse Win-Win World for All? What kind of world could we create? What kind of social and institutional structures might we create that every one on the planet had equal access to health care, education, protection, justice, food, clothing, housing and income so that no one was missing out? What if all were nurtured and supported to fulfill their highest creative potentials for wisdom, beauty and self-actualization? Would you like to live in that kind of a world? Would you like to have your great grandchildren live in that kind of a world? A world where everyone knew they were, and were treated as, sacred, worthy luminous being of love that is for giving.
The truth is that it is entirely possible to create such a world. We just have to hold this as a shared intention and then move into acton by showing up to do our part to deconstruct the beliefs and consciousness of separation, and the corporate capitalist, profit-driven, racist institutions that poison the earth and people towards each other driving the catastrophes that threaten to wipe out the human species taking many other species with us as we go.
It may seem impossible. It mean seem preposterous. It may seem to be a naive fantasy wish that could never be accomplished in the “real world”. Yet who would have put money on the motley, rag-tag army of colonialists defeating the most powerful army in the world in 1776? Who would have put money on the Berlin Wall coming down without a shot being fired? Who would have put money on people walking on the moon if you lived in the time of ancient Rome? Not too many that is for sure.
Dr. Martin Luther King spoke a message decades ago that still holds power for those of us living today when he shared what he thought was possible – “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies; education and culture for their minds; and dignity, equality and freedom for the spirits.”
So let’s not just treat symptoms. Lets also address root causes and do what it takes to expand our consciousness to a wider bandwidth and to a deeper knowing of the truth of who and what we are and why we are here – sacred worthy luminous beings of love whose purpose is to live love now working to create the kind of world that is possible for all of us to be living in.
So polish up the light you are
come so far from a star
polish up the light you
to shine, shine, shine.
How to polish up a star so bright?
you hold it up
into the light
Shine on into darkness
shine on into night
shine on when its stressful
shine with all your might.
