Challenge and Opportunity

I tremble like a flower in a storm.
The strong winds push me
this way and that-
but around my roots
the solid ground sustains me
And tomorrow, when the new sun rises,
my petals will lift
like tattered flags,
and welcome the open sky.
~ Sharon Gilbert – My Poet Laureate (since 1972)

Nothing like a pandemic to surface, deepen, and widen the subcutaneous fissures inthe political, economic, and social institutions of early 21st century life on Earth. Like Alice, I’ve often felt like I too have fallen down a rabbit hole into another reality with strange characters, like the Queen of Hearts who offs the heads of those who question her judgments, and Humpty Dumpty who, when presented with rational explanations countering his views of reality, pronounces that “words means what I want them to mean.”

2020 was the year that the color grey disappeared into competing seas of black or white, where science became arbitrary, and the tension between the individual and the collective polarized life on every level. This is an inherent tension that arises from an amalgam of our human and divine identities. This is characterized by the need for both individual initiative and expression, as well as the need to connect in community whether as a couple or a country or a continent.

Spiritual development necessitates self-referral mechanisms to monitor and balance tensions arising within this individual vs. collective dynamic. This integration process is an evolutionary impulse within every being and organization, and expresses itself differently in each age and culture. Today’s challenges offer their own unique rabbit holes to navigate along with the opportunities to inspire and celebrate individual achievement within a field of connectedness that is both personal and universal.