Possibilities

When my husband's father was watching a boxing match on television, you had to stay an arm's reach away, lest you get clobbered. Not that he intended to hit you, he was acting out the moves he saw on screen, punching, and swinging.

I have learned since that we have mirror neurons that don't know the difference between watching and experiencing. Notice how you jump when something springs out of the darkness. Your pulse quickens, you sweat, your heart races. My father-in-law was really into it. Even a make-believe movie can do that to us. That makes me wonder about watching violent movies. Yes, yes, I know, without conflict, you have no story, but there is internal conflict in most everyone's lives, we want to see how you overcame it. 

I just listened to https://londonreal.tv/gregg-braden-raising-human-consciousness/, an interview with Gregg Braden on LondonReal with Brian Rose. They were talking about "Raising Consciousness." 

I'm a traitor to my biology major, where evolution was the primary focus. Of course, evolution has occurred—plants and animals change over time, new species are being born, but I was delighted to hear Braden say that Darwin had it wrong in this regard: "Nature is about cooperation, not competition."

I always hated "Red in tooth and claw." Yes, animals eat other animals, I'm sorry it's set up that way. But have you noticed a stratum of African animals living peacefully with each other, lions lying among the zebras—until somebody gets hungry?

Think of the brain's function. First and foremost, its purpose is to help us SURVIVE.

In this economy, it means having a dependable income.

The second function of the brain is trying to make us SAFE. We want a home, shelter, a safe place to be. 

Once safe, we want a TRIBE.

A tribe will stick with us if there are any social threats. Evolutionally speaking, the tribe was there for us. We depended on our tribe for survival: they nurtured us, helped us gather food, and provided protection against predators and enemy tribes. Social relationships kept us alive. 

"Perhaps nature," wrote psychologist Naomi Eisenberger, "taking a clever shortcut, simply 'borrowed' the existing mechanism for physical pain. Instead of creating a new one from scratch, which is how broken bones and broken hearts ended up so intimately interconnected in our brains."

I'm writing about the brain because I want us to come through this current emotional trauma with an understanding that we can be hurt by constant turmoil. Once we know that we are a product of our biology, we can make a conscious choice to choose patience, love, and understanding.

I know that human beings have, since the beginning, used Conflict as a means to resolve differences. Why is that, when we yearn for peace? 

A baby doesn't see the difference between people of different skin color, they don't see Asian, or African, or Irish. They have to be carefully taught. 

Down through the ages, we have been taught to be afraid. It has left us shell-shocked. Sayers taught us that humans are evil by nature, that original sin is inherited, and that our way back to the heavenly fold was to follow their teachings. Deviate from these laws, and hell was waiting for us. That's the mind of an angry, vindictive person. No wonder humans are so afraid of death. We just can't be good enough.

We were afraid of reprisals if we deviated from the norm. Kings determined the canon of the Bible (what went into it, what was left out). Inquisitors destroyed dissidents who declared a different way of thinking. Invaders desirous of land, destroyed its inhabitants, Dictators whose addiction was Power, wielded it over the masses which were just trying to live their lives. People were dragged out of their homes and put in concentration camps. People with the Power to do so collected slaves to work for them.

When we have problems that threaten our survival, safety, and tribe that would undoubtedly knock us off-kilter.

It is time for a new way.

I once mentioned in an earlier blog a Hawaiian teaching called ho'oponopono, which is simply to say, I'm sorry, please forgive me, I love you." It doesn't have to be directed at a specific individual, country, or race, just saying it makes a difference. It is getting back to sweetness we were meant to live. 

I don't mean to insinuate that a simple sentence can solve the world's problems. I'm saying it can turn us in a direction, against fear, against anger, against brother against brother.

The Hawaiian word ho'oponopono comes from ho'o ("to make") and pono ("right"). The repetition of the word pono means "doubly right" or being right with both self and others. In a nutshell, ho'oponopono is a process by which we can forgive others to whom we are connected.

When you become right with others, you become right with yourself. 

Braden emphasized that human beings did not appear on the scene due to a long, slow, natural selective process.

Waiting for a beautiful hairless redhead mutation to appear on the scene would take a long, long time.

Humans appeared Suddenly.

And we did not descend from Neanderthals. We have some Neanderthal DNA in us because we lived alongside them and had boyfriends and girlfriends.

Our DNA changed so radically from primates that it appears to be intentional.

If our brain isn't a product of evolution, then does that imply a purpose?

If we follow the evidence back (reverse engineer), perhaps we will come up with a model. When evidence doesn't support a story, we need a new story. 

We are still wired the same way as that new primate who happened upon the scene some 200,000 years ago--Survival, safety, tribe. 

Braden said he wondered why chimpanzees couldn't sing since we share 99% of our chromosomes. (But then we share about 50% with a banana that doesn't sing either.)

Human Chromosome #2 is responsible for the brain.

Chromosome #7 is responsible for our speech.

We, as generations before us, are still searching for a Promised Land.

The enslaved Israelis rallied behind a leader who declared to the governing body, "Let My People go.

Polynesian Wayfarers took off in big Catamaran canoes across the vast ocean in search of new land. 

American pioneers packed up their belongings into a covered wagon and set off in search of a dream.

Imagine: 

You're trudging across the prairie on a wagon train after hearing the call to a new life. 

You're attending to business. You are keeping the wagon on the trail, tending the oxen and horses, milking the cow that, bless her heart, is also trudging along tied to the back of your wagon. You're keeping the children fed, bacon (salt-pork) in the morning, beef jerky for lunch, beans, and biscuits for dinner. When the hunters bring home venison, the entire train has a barbecue for dinner. You are keeping the children from sunburn by making sure they wear their hats, and when you stop to rest, you pull thorns from their little hands. At night you kiss their blistered feet and tell them stories of the farm awaiting at the end of the trail where they can have a dog and a horse of their own.

Before the Wagon Train pulled out, I signed up for a job as a scout. I'm riding ahead, looking for the narrowest spot to cross the stream. I bring back news of where the road has been washed out—the trail made by wagons that went before us. We are stealth, my little horse and I, disturbing little, at one with our surroundings, slipping into places where a big wagon and oxen cannot go. I can see if there is any game in the vicinity, for they rarely run from a single horse and rider. I can scout out any inhabitants we can befriend or avoid. My horse can take me to the hilltops where I can see the vast terrain ahead, and be thrilled at the possibilities.

2020, The Year of Clear Vision

2020

It sounded so illustrious on January 1, 2020. The year of clear vision, we thought. The polarization of 2019 behind us and the age of enlightenment ahead.

WHAM!

Now we have mud-splattered glasses. We’re breathing behind masks, our hands are chaffed from frequent washings, we don’t touch a stranger or a friend. Used to be, we shook hands. We thrilled at a touch. We patted each other on the backs. Playmates intertwined fingers. Heck, when we were kids, we shared chewing gum. Isn’t that gross?

I sneezed about 15 times, just thinking about a test my husband had. He went into the hospital for a procedure they had postponed when the virus struck. Now they have reopened their doors to selective treatment. Because he was in the hospital, he had to have a virus test. They pushed a probe up his nose and into the back of the throat (Achoo!). 

Well, we know one person who DOES NOT HAVE THE VIRUS. 

From this, I found that there are two texts for the coronavirus. 

One is the one my husband had, testing for a live virus.

The other is a blood draw that tests for antibodies. Somehow the person had, does have, or sometime in the past had a similar coronavirus and has built antibodies.

The trouble is the tests have sometimes been mixed, sometimes not, and even the epidemiologists have trouble collecting data. So, here we are, not knowing what is up, left, right, or sideways.

I had decided on the last blog, not to mention the virus, but here it is again. It just keeps popping up. 

I had a meltdown last week—everything bothered me. The dog must have caught my energy and barked (brayed—he is a coon-hound) at every little thing, the bikers on the street, the fly on the wall.

I’m more centered now—spent yesterday in my truck (my office on wheels) reading and writing, punctuated only by a bathroom break. 

I received a comment on my https://travelswithjo.com site where the person commented on an old blog, (Bless them.). I wondered what I had said. (“The Universe is Holding Its Breath,” May 4, 2019)

After checking, I found that I had talked about Jean Huston using the word “Quantum Field” as a place to reside. She spoke of Margaret Mead, the anthropologist who stayed with her for a time. As they walked, Mead was railing on the fact that she had a paper due the following day, but couldn’t find the material she needed. 

Along came a former student, who stopped, and said,” Dr. Mead, you probably don’t remember me…”

“Oh, I remember you. You didn’t complete your term paper.”

“Well,” said the student. I went on to graduate school anyway, and I’m working on (whatever). 

It was the very thing Mead needed.

Mead grabbed her by the arm and said, “You’re coming home with me.”

After that experience, Huston asked Mead how she got to be so lucky.

“Because I expect to be,” answered Mead.

“She was in the Quantum Field,” said Huston. She didn’t hold back her anger (for enlightened people ought not to get mad), but she BELIEVED.

“Tell me,” wrote the poet Mary Oliver*, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.”

Don’t wait for the next life, do it now.

It’s time we rise up as people. It’s time we stopped following protocols that some say will help us, although we aren’t too sure. (If masks help, why are we also distancing?) However, we follow. Instead, we should say we aren’t going to hunker down and let fear control our lives. We aren’t going to allow our entire world to come to a standstill, and our livelihood become trashed because we fear of contracting the flu. 

Yes, we’ll take precautions, but we will stop running scared—making us afraid to look at each other for heaven’s sake. (Some data says that our risk of contracting the disease is about the same as our risk of an automobile accident driving to work. And then we see graves in Brazil. What in the heck are we supposed to believe?) I don’t know, that’s the trouble, we don’t know.

Aren’t you tired though, of companies warning us, “Stay Safe,” “Be healthy. “Stay Home—save a life?” 

Those, now cliché’s, are the thing to say—it’s nice. It’s saying there are there for us. It’s treating us like children. It keeps fear, contagion, and the possibility of death, constantly in our faces.

I guess I’ve reached the not-being-nice part of my life when I realize I might be gone tomorrow, and I want to see the world flourish whether I’m here to see it or not.

It’s hard to think we have anything to protect ourselves from when I see the absolutely glorious green fields and flocks of birds. I hear the flowers laughing—not at us, at the sheer joy of being alive. Those flowers will wilt and die, but they are enjoying the moment.

But not us. We don’t know how to do that.

I don’t want to be foolhardy saying all this, but I worry about how easily people are controlled. Wave a virus in front of them, and they all scurry for cover.

I went into a bar to buy an iced tea yesterday. You had to go inside to buy a drink, for the food trucks outside didn’t serve any. Inside on the TV, I saw a jockey on a horse, on a track, wearing a mask. Really? 

He was outside in the fresh air, no one was spitting on him, and he needed to breathe unencumbered to make that run. (Maybe he hadn’t pulled his mask down yet after being with the pit workers. And it would protect him from the dust kicked up by the horses. There could be a reason.) 

Did you know that the Native Americans used to set fires? (How about that for a non sequitur?) I think of that as I look out over a flat green field that lies in the Willamette Valley. 

The Native Americans would burn areas to allow new plants—eatable ones—a chance to grow. Up the I-5 freeway a bit, there is an area called Camas Swale where the camas flowers grow.

The camas have an eatable bulb that the native Americans collected for food. After a burn, the camas would come in, and the People would mark the tiny plants for the next year when they could harvest them. Their marks also showed other nomads coming through the location of eatable plants. 

Do we have an eye on the seventh generation, as did the Native Americans?

What can we pass on?

We can mark a camas flower for others to find.

Yesterday another wonderful reader commented on a blog I had written on October 10, 2017. Maybe you remember reading it, but I had to be reminded of what I had said.   

“Ever since I heard the writer/ researcher Michael Tellinger say, “Our purpose is to raise the consciousness of the people,” I said, “Yes. That’s it.”

“This is the top purpose, you might have sub-purposes, like pursuing your dream of becoming an artist, or building a hospital in Africa, but first and foremost, we ought to uplift the consciousness of the people that populate this planet.

“We do not need to fix people; we need to assist them in fixing themselves. One by one, if people popped out of their limitations, the world would be transformed without us lifting a finger. And we could say that rarely do we find a broken person, only people in want of something.

“Evidence of my claim is that hordes of people are seeking healing experiences, joining consciousness-raising groups, and studying Quantum physics to understand where they fit into the cosmos. People throng to Tony Robbins events with the belief that their lives will improve because of it. Millions follow the TED talks with presenters encouraging us to live our dreams, follow our bliss, and live the life for which we were born.

“All this tells me people are hungry to know and to understand where they fit into the cosmos. People throng together to bring fresh water to Africa, to begin a peace movement, to stand up for green movements, promote solar energy, animal rights, clean ocean, and healthy forests.”

See, people do care.

And now we are faced with a new challenge. What are we going to do about it?

The Summer Day—Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Camas flower