Carolyn North (carolynnorthbooks.com) is a writer of books that address "the interface between matter and spirit."
PUTNEY-Recently, I went to a high school production of Cabaret to see the daughter of a good friend performing in it. Assuming I was going to a kind of variety show, I expected a sweet teenage-y thing - but it wasn't.
I'd forgotten that Cabaret was also the name of a musical based on Christopher Isherwood's The Berlin Stories taking place during the rise of Hitler - exactly when my husband, Herb, at the age of 2 years was escaping from Germany in his mother's arms in the middle of the night.
His father, that same night, was caught on the German side of the Dutch border and thrown into a Nazi jail. He was finally rescued, miraculously, and everyone finally made it to London, although 2-year-old Herbert nearly died along the way.
Eventually, the family made it to New York City, thanks to the intervention of some distant relatives in England. And thanks to these relatives, Herb lived to become a scientist and a professor, my husband, and the father of our three children.
Miracles happen, even in a time of war.
It was a synchronicity that I saw this extraordinary performance of Cabaret just days before the second anniversary of Herb's death and right after we elected a man to high office who I believe may be at least as dangerous as Hitler.
I am pondering the conjunction of these events and the immense courage it took for a cast of gifted young students to delve deeply into the realities of their grandparents' world, putting their hearts and souls into exploring, theatrically, the folly of ordinary people who get seduced by evil and are willing to follow where it leads.
So I am thinking a lot about sanity and courage these days in the face of what we have to deal with now, from the personal and political to the planetary and the spiritual. I believe that from now on we will have to address all four levels at once, with as much prayer and consciousness as we can muster.
"Pray and build consciousness," is what Woableze, a Native American leader at Standing Rock in North Dakota, has said about how to be effective resisters.
It's not easy, but it's necessary that all of us do the personal work of going deep in order to clear ourselves of what is holding us down, then rising like bread into nourishing loaves to feed those around us.
* * *
I am reminded of a physics experiment Herb showed me once about frequencies of vibration. When a system is ready to shift into a higher frequency - which apparently happens all the time in nature - the first thing it does is disintegrate!
Everything falls apart until it finds its way into the faster vibration and stabilizes at the higher frequency. Which is to say that it's an unholy mess for a while, until eventually it becomes something more complex and interesting than it was before.
You can actually witness this process using sound to raise the vibration: sand is spread evenly on a metal plate while a sound generator produces a tone, making the sand jiggle and jump around, gradually forming a pattern. When the pitch is raised a notch, the pattern dissolves again into a mess of sand until a new pattern gradually emerges, more intricate than the one before. It is called Chladni vibrations. Look it up.
Yes, it is a magical and beautiful process, and inherent in the natural world, so why are we surprised that it is happening to us right now, individually and collectively? We're in a dissolution phase, after all, and nobody ever said it would be easy!
I know, for myself, that when I am trying to change an old habit that no longer serves me, I have a hard time admitting it, to begin with, and then letting go of whatever habit I am accustomed to. Denial tends to take over.
If you're a smoker, ever tried to stop? What about the white sugar habit? Can you not look at a text message when your gizmo goes bzzz?
Could it be that during the chaos of this breakdown phase, when a new and higher frequency of vibration is struggling to be born, our job is not to go bananas, but to pray and build our consciousness as Woableze suggests we do, so we can grow into the evolving world, the larger picture coming into view?
As Terry Pratchett has Peaseblossom say in his wonderful novel, The Shepherd's Crown, "If the world is changing, it is we who must change it. We who must decide how it will be. That is how it has always been. And how it must be again."
Donald Trump, God bless him, is ultimately just one of us, playing a role that must be as terrifying for him as it is for the rest of us. But I believe it may also be an extraordinary opportunity for us to make the big shifts that have to be made.
What else is there to do? If this guy doesn't get us motivated to change the world - whether he's doing it on purpose or not - and if we do not take the hint and get to work, I don't know what will!
* * *
So what is our work? What can make a positive difference? How quickly do we have to do it?
For myself, I start by checking in with my heart's desire, what I most love to do, what I cannot not do. Then I find a way to do it with as much forward motion as I can muster, no matter what gets in my way. I figure that since everything needs doing, if each of us does what we love and are good at, most everything is likely to get stimulated in the process.
"How can we make a positive difference?"
Well, for me it's about loving so deeply that I fall in love not only with people, but with rocks and clouds and weeds and worms. Hopefully, this will cause my consciousness to gradually expand in all directions, eventually including every little thing in the world - like a prayer.
"How quickly do we need to act?"
Yesterday, if possible, for the glaciers are melting and the hurricanes are blowing hard. Thirty years ago would have been even better. Fifty years ago, even better than that.
I believe we can do all of this as long as we do it together and with all our hearts. It's time to change the pitch and sing higher, louder, joining hands and consciousness to include every single note in the universe, from atoms to baby mice to galaxies.
And then be astonished by the beauty of the new pattern as it slowly emerges from the chaos.
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