Day’s Eye

To say that this year has been “normal” would be wishful thinking at best and denial at worst. In fact, since 2020 nothing has been like the years before. I’ve thought about this for a few years, and while I continue to contemplate if this is simply a function of aging and seeing world events from increasingly higher and higher vantage points, I do wonder if this time is actually different.

One thing’s for sure: during times of confusing and senseless violence it feels like our collective consciousness also becomes confused and reels in agony, anger, sadness, and disillusionment. After all, we’re literally consciousness experiencing being a physical human being. We lose sight of our unified and often unspoken mission of entropy reduction and are left picking up broken pieces while wondering how it all ended up like this. The short answer to this bewildering question: we let it happen. We continue to experiment with the same plans, rhetoric, and ways of going about our business. We change nothing and then get mad when the result is no different than the hundreds of other times we’ve watched the bus we’re all on drive off the cliff.

My intention isn’t to admonish or make you, dear reader, feel worse about the state of everything. My goal is to remind you that there is a better reality. We all dream it and know it is possible. Refocusing on such lofty and seemingly out-of-reach dreams of world peace and abundance isn’t a fool’s errand. Abundance already exists. Peace is possible. You can’t hope for something you know nothing about, and you can’t imagine things that you don’t know are possible.

But there are others and they hoard the resources and subjugate us to a life of scarcity. How many of them are there among us? Few, while we are many. Yet we fear the few and continue to accept their broken leadership while wallowing in despondency, and worse, we fall into their traps by turning our attention and malice on each other. I’m convinced most people don’t even know who they are, but “Dadgummit!” they are some evil SOBs!

The many, you and I, are needed for their tilted system to function and allow them to perpetuate the perception of scarcity. We allow ourselves to be gripped by manufactured fear. We’ve given up control of our very reality to the few. But it’s not all lost. If we gave up our grip on reality, that means we can take it back. Not through violence, not through force, but through power of the exact thing that makes us co-creators of our own reality: our collective consciousness.

There are no “others.” There are no differences that can’t be reconciled. There are no borders or boundaries. All of these ideas are illusions.

Do I have the answer as to what we should all do? No. But you have the answer as to what you should do and focus on. We all do. At the most basic level, we all have the ability to spot inconsistencies and to question the reality presented to us.

When you’re faced with external events that generate fear and negative emotion, recognize that. When you’re moved to highly emotional states when otherwise you don’t have any reason to express them, take note. These mental checkpoints don’t solve anything on their own, but they allow you to stop, think, analyze, and give yourself time to understand. This brief time of stillness provides the silence that allows our collective consciousness to break through and orient us.

Ask yourself: What do we actually want? Does this reality, the one that you’re living your waking life in and reading these words from, feel right? Are there changes you’d love to see so much that you’ve become passionate about them? Have dramatic and hard-to-look-at events in the world become so common that you are now numb to it all? Are we united, or are we splintered into small groups pitted against one another for the advancement of something else?

I’m reminded again of this powerful spoken word at the end of the track “Symphony of Hope” by MaMan:

When we unite, the impossible begins to hum with possibility. Like threads woven together by unseen hands, we become a tapestry of change, a force greater than the sum of our parts. In our shared effort, the earth awakens — not as a battle to win, but as a dance to join. Each step, each voice, becomes a note in a song that resonates through the very air we breathe. And in this symphony of hope, magic unfolds: a world reborn from the harmony of many hearts beating as one.

• By MaMan, and here’s the track “Symphony of Hope” for your enjoyment. Sit somewhere quiet, breathe deeply, relax completely, let your thoughts pass by, and focus on the music.

Field of Daisies

A daisy is a powerful symbol for many things in many cultures and traditions. The primary thread in most revolves around renewal and purity. I think of this flower during both good and bad times. During particularly difficult moments I’m reminded of the resilience of this flower and its cheery appearance, how it always finds a way to thrive in suboptimal conditions. The human spirit is much like a field of daisies, adapting and evolving no matter what it endures. The white petals and yellow center resemble “day’s eye,” derived from its habit of opening during the day and closing at night. It is a powerful and living metaphor for renewal and new beginnings.

Like a field of daisies opening its resilient and beautiful flowers at dawn, humanity too awakens once more. Free from the burdens of yesterday’s pandemonium, we take our place in the “Symphony of Hope” as we march toward a beautiful future.