A Time of Profound Change

We are in a time of profound change at all levels, from the personal to the global. Not just incremental change or tremors, tweaks, and twiddling at the margins but rather epochal, systemic transformations in human consciousness and, as a result, metamorphosis of cultural, social, economic, and political values and structures. We are indeed living in interesting times!

As I wrote in a recent TGP post:

The challenge before us is to stay centered in the eye of whatever storm swirls around us, focused on the larger perspective of the evolutionary transformation we are undergoing, and proactively doing our part, in community, to nurture the consciousness of wholeness that is aborning.

Given this, we must look beyond merely resisting or protesting this or that policy, presidential decree, judicial nominee, or cabinet appointment. Yes, those things are important in the immediate micro situation (see my other recent TGP post, especially the part about not posing enemies). In the much more profound macro situation, though, it’s even more important and will have much longer lasting and far-reaching consequences to be projecting, building, and demonstrating the new, more just and life-affirming behaviors and systems that will replace those that are dissolving.

And one of those life-affirming behaviors that we now have an opportunity to develop in ourselves and demonstrate is expressing compassion and love for all those souls who are trying desperately to hang on to the structures that have served them so well heretofore, nourishing them, giving them a job to do, and thus providing security and meaning – and that are suddenly, inexorably being torn asunder in the violent winds of change. We can help reduce the trauma and possible (likely!) violence associated with the metamorphosis by helping those in resistance to overcome the fear and to trust that, after the storm and once the debris has settled, new structures will arise to provide meaning and security.

What are the structures that are dissolving in this country? They include attributes of our nation that many if not most Americans have always thought of as bedrocks of what defines the United States of America but are now crumbling – things such as White majority and dominance; Christian majority and dominance; male dominance; the dominance of money, materialism, capitalism, and the nation-state; and the dominance of humanity over other life and Earth as a whole. Actually, also dissolving is the acceptance and use of dominance itself as a form of relationship.  For example, “power over” is morphing into “power with” as a preferred way of relating in families, workplaces, communities, and government.

Of course, exercising power-with requires that we trust in one another and in processes that unfold organically and nonlinearly. And that’s very scary to many people. Hence the call for and necessity of compassion, understanding, non-judgement, and love. A difficult, possibly unimaginable task when looking through the micro lens, but perhaps it makes more sense and is more doable from the macro point of view.