I fell into a hole for a few days. The San Francisco air quality had been such that when the pug and I went outside for our daily peramble, he sneezed for the whole walk, and I came home headachy. My own struggle was a constant reminder of the devastation happening close by. Friends were evacuating their homes. The gut-wrenching destruction of fires haunted me, the lives lost, the trees and plants, the animals. I hooked into the heavy feeling and dug in.
The wildfires affected many places from my history. I have driven from San Francisco to Washington so many times I can see nearly each mile in my mind, my aching delight in the vast beauty of forest always very present as I wind through. Okanagan County Washington, where I picked apples for 6 weeks, long ago. Santa Cruz, where I went to college. Vacaville, Oroville, spots on the “places I’ve played” list.
We know that disasters in places where we have context hit us hardest. Events that happen in places we’ve never heard of affect us for a moment, and then fade. We donate some money to the relief fund, and then let the catastrophe drift from our awareness. It’s as if we can only hold so much suffering, so we stick to what we know.
I wonder how this human tendency will begin to shift in the coming years. As the dire predictions of climate change scientists unfold, we start to see how each disaster, each heartbreak, affects the whole. Not only does the smoke reach all the way out to East Coast, the energetic wave of pain affects us all.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the ways in which human consciousness is transforming. For one thing people even a generation back didn’t grow up with the idea of “global community.” This concept is new in my lifetime. Once we were connected, first through the ease of travel and then through technology, our minds began to change. We started to realize that events across the planet have direct effect on us. Cause and effect became something different. Global.
This is a gift, I believe, as with this knowledge, we can’t help but eventually lose our provincial and self-centered ideas. We can’t live for ourselves anymore. We not only see directly how our actions affect others, we do this in the spotlight of humanity’s gaze.
More and more, we have the ability to see that others are just like us. The first time I traveled overseas, when I was 22 years old, I was struck by the similarities of culture. Everyone wants the same thing: enough to eat, comfortable place to live, opportunities for their children. With the arrival of the internet, we all had the ability to see this first hand, without a transatlantic flight. I thought, fantastic. The end of war! How could people want to drop bombs on folks they can dial up and interact with?
When we understand how we move from the same heart like this, then the Golden Rule becomes so easy. In the light of our new connection, the basic tenet at the base of all world religions: do unto others as you would have them do to you, can no longer be an abstract idea. You can see, right there, a family like yours, across the world, loving their children, struggling against oppression. How could you wish them harm?
I guess I always underestimate fear. I guess we still fear the different and strange, no matter the connections we make. Our brain stem tells us to be afraid of the other tribe since the other tribe may take our land, so we go on attack against the Other. Anything slightly different, hair, skin, clothing, is suspect.
Fear tells us there is not enough. Fear tells us that if you succeed, I fail. Fear tells us that if something terrible happens, you must deserve it. Fear informs our belief that we are better than anyone. Fear tells us that ours is better than yours. Fear opens up opportunity to accept what those we admire tell us, blindly, and thus drive us to commit atrocities in the name of safety.
I just read an explanation of philosopher Martin Buber’s concept of “I-Thou, I-It.”
An I-Thou relationship between human beings is between two authentic beings, in the here and now—an authentic dialogue. To be an authentic being, one must see the other as authentic being; and to see the other as authentic being, we must be authentic being.
[…]
By contrast, an I-It relationship is subject to object, a separation. The other becomes a thing; the I uses the other for his or her own advantage or purpose and tries to dominate, control, or manipulate the other. It is easy to fall into the I-It mode unconsciously. I-It is often a favorite defense, or justification for many of our personal ego parts—the proud one, the greedy one, the manipulative one, the abusive one, the arrogant one, and yes, even the spiritual one.
The Shaman Within, p. 43. Claude Poncelet, PhD
Humanity’s I-It relationship with the natural world is certainly creating repercussions. The I-It relationship with other people is apparent in the divisions within the society. The I-It relationship has even been weaponized, used to manipulate the vulnerable to create the unrest we see.
I love music because it is the common language of humanity. The molecules of listeners vibrate together, as the waveforms shake us all through. I miss playing music so much. I had a feeling the other day of longing for amplified music in my ears, screaming guitar lines and the rumble of bass. People together, laughing, enjoying, letting go of their need to take serious stances. The isolation of the pandemic has caused people to forget what it feels like to stand side by side with the Other, in joy. We become one being then, the ultimate expression of the I-Thou relationship.
I think of the Golden Rule often. This is easy for me, since I’m empathetic, and a writer. I like to put myself in other people’s shoes, can’t help it. There are eight tenets from Buddhism by which I try to abide: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. All of them point to the Golden Rule, really. Do not cause harm, to yourself, or to others.
In fact, I have the hardest time applying this rule to one person. I have been the worst to myself. Since it is the cruel or insensitive mistakes I have made with other people that keep me up at night, if I had spent as much time speaking to anyone the way I have spoken to myself, I would be in misery, never able to sleep. Why did I think it was okay to berate myself so?
There is a belief that the world we see outside of ourselves is just our manifest inner world. Combative people reflect the battle going on within themselves. People who spew hatred are listening to such a voice within. All the judgments made are those we make against ourselves, amplified.
When I let go of the judgmental voice I had trained on myself, I started to see the world more kindly. Working first on our own internal patterns of suffering is the first step in changing our world. When we take responsibility for the way we experience reality, then we let go of victimhood, powerlessness. We walk in our own authority and recognize our power. Power to love, power to unite, power to console. It is personal power that releases fear and puts us in the drivers’ seat of our lives.
When I see people committing terrible acts with the energy of the I-It mentality, it is fear that I see. Those who reach outward to control or harm are reflecting the pain inside, the lack, the feeling of powerlessness. These people feel that in order to be in control of their fear they must hurt others, or that by hurting others they will reclaim that lost power. They lose sight of the Golden Rule. We get a window into their feelings of weakness, their pain. Treating them with the same energy of hatred and vitriol that they spew out only reflects fear back to them over and over, fueling the field of fear into which we all seem hooked these days.
Feel yourself in your knowing. How would you most like to be treated? Then treat yourself this way: lovingly, compassionately, with forgiveness for your weakness and your fear. Speak it to yourself. I know you are suffering. I know you are scared. There in the center is your heart, and there is the knowing that you are worthy of light and kindness. You are loved.
Once this is secure within yourself, you can move this energy outward. Kindness, empathy to those you walk with. Recognition of the other and their struggle, their fear. Each interaction, authentic being to authentic being.
I don’t think that anything will get better until this happens. Manifestation of a new reality is not going to happen until we realize that our inner worlds are affecting the ones outside. And that your fear is mine.
Every week since the beginning of the pandemic, the band meets on Zoom with some dear friends and we goof around, talk music and haircuts. We have gotten to know each other so well. It is an hour a week in which we connect again with people who may have started as strangers, but whom we now love dearly. I don’t know how they vote. I don’t know their opinions about all the volatile subjects of the day. I do know that music brought us together and connects us, and when we stick to the fundamental truth of that language, we get to share our hearts. It’s not difficult to do. Person to person, I-Thou. Beautiful.
I was scrolling through yesterday, holed up in the house, seeing if the air quality index had changed colors. An image from the Hubble telescope popped up in my feed, titled “Pocketful of Stars.” There, in full glory, was an image I have seen in several of my dreams, a universe of millions of multi-colored stars. It took my breath away.
I remember the first time I saw this vision in my dreams and thinking, Why did I think stars were only one color? I was astounded at how limited my belief. Astounded that I had never thought of something so simple. There it had been, all along, an infinite sky of possibility, familiar as a dream.
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