Category Archives: Global Consiousness

It’s the Petri Dish of Evil

 I have been to Boston several times, but the only people I know who live there are (at best) acquaintances. I don’t run for fun or sport and was ignorant to the magnitude and significance of the Boston Marathon.

For these, and other reasons, I have felt removed from the events of the past week. Before today, I was not feeling the same visceral pain and anxiety as with Newtown or similar tragedies where I was more identified. I certainly felt horrible for the people involved, but I was not glued to the news and I did not turn to social media or this blog to share my fears and anxieties; mostly because I felt they were unjustified and insignificant compared to others who were more intimate with this story. 

But today, with the unraveling of the manhunt and the illumination of the lives of the suspects, I feel pulled into this tragedy anew. With every update, I am wrapped with a familiar kind of fear.

Brothers: one a man, the other just barely. Conflicting reports: A coach says of the younger one, “… dedicated kid, and all the kids loved him.” The uncle says they were both “losers.” Former friends and teachers of the younger brother use the word, “nice” and “normal.” A cousin says the older one had turned radical in his Islamic beliefs and was corrupting the younger brother. The family is said to be “incredible” in a good way. The father calls his sons “angels” and insists they were “set up.”

Right now the information is conflicted and confusing; the truth likely buried somewhere among the rumor and rubble. This is why my fear antennas rise.

Do you ever really know someone? I mean, really know them? With each report of “normal” turned “violent” I can’t help but think that our bodies and faces are just a facade for what lies within us. Evil can walk next to you on the sidewalk, sit behind you in class, or bump your shoulder on the subway and you wouldn’t even know it. How could you?

I ask myself, are we all highly skilled actors projecting to the world what it expects to see? Or is the world so scared of the truth that our eyes will only see the what we want to see? Did the brothers project to the world a “normal” facade? Or did the world define the brothers with labels it could accept? Labels less scary than the truth.

I’m not afraid of being subject to a terrorist attack. I understand those odds are infinitesimal. I’m not afraid that my children are growing up in an unsafe world. Yes, I understand that evil exists, but I believe love exists in a larger capacity.

My fears are more esoteric. What scares me are the imperceptible human masks. The thin veils we place over our eyes and ourselves to hide the things we cannot and do not want to see. The invisible dividers that separate us; that tell us we’re alone, or different, or not good enough. The shields we hold in the name of protection, in spite of the pain. This shadow and its murky opacity is the Petri dish of evil. It’s the perfect environment to allow evil to fester until it invades the mind and convinces someone it’s a good idea to drop a backpack bomb in the middle of a crowd just because you believe they are not like you.

Humanity, in its never-ending variation, dichotomy, and adaptability are the reasons I love this life. It is also the thing that scares me most.

This feeling of  being different, removed and untouched by the events of the past week is my own veil. The veil I put up to shield me from the hurt of others so that I would not have to submerge myself in their world, their pain, their fears.

But I’m all in now, Boston. I’m emotionally there with the runners, mothers, fathers, classmates, coaches, friends and acquaintances. I feel your hurt and your terror and your anxiety for the next hour, day, week, year. I offer you my prayers, my thoughts, my hopes for comfort and justice and peace. My emotions are visceral now and that’s okay because I’m not hiding from the collective fear, and thus, my own. No mask, no veil, no shield, no shadows.

And maybe what brings me comfort in times like this, can bring some comfort to you as well. It’s an ageless wisdom:

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

~Both quotes from Martin Luther King Jr

Love & Light, Boston

Boston

A Legacy of Goodness

always a reason

I believe in Karma.

The word Karma comes from Eastern religions such as Hindu and Buddhism. The literal translation is “action” or “deed,” but it is understood as that which causes an entire cycle of cause and effect. Although its origins are ancient, it has been solidified in popular culture as a single word to imply–you get what you give, you reap what you sow, or for those (like me) who speak fluent Beatles; in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

This philosophy makes perfect sense to me. I believe deep within my core that everything we do (and even think) has an invisible force or energy attached to it. I believe that energy affects the entire world in ways we will probably never understand.

When my first child was born I decided to jump through hoops and endure the extra blood tests so that I could donate the stem cell enriched, umbilical cord blood to a local university. I did this for three reasons. The first, is because I believe in modern science and its abilities to save lives. I know that the stem cells found in umbilical cord blood are some of the very best for people who need stem cell transplants for cancers like leukemia. My greatest hope was that this byproduct of the birthing process would give someone else a second chance at life, and that was essentially my second reason–a wish, really. I hoped that the biological tether that tied me and my daughter together, the thread that gave her life could be woven back into all of life’s fabric as something positive, renewing, and life-sustaining; that the moment she entered this world, she would be a force for good, an act of kindness, an energetic spark of good deeds and good karma.

This year my daughter turned three and I threw her a butterfly themed birthday party.  I ordered live caterpillars from an online company three weeks prior to her party. Over those three weeks we watched them grow into fat caterpillars, form their chrysalids, and then emerge as butterflies. At her party, in spite of the grabby, sugar-fueled grasps of toddlers, we released them safely into the sky. It was an impossibly adorable, highly memorable moment that left the girls in awe.

We also had a pinata, face-painting and butterfly-shaped snack bags. It was all a little indulgent for a three-year-old but you’re only three once, right? In the midst of the frantic preparations I ran to the store for last-minute items. When I got there, there were teenagers out front collecting food for a local charity supporting homeless families. Although I was in a rush, I took their flyer with a smile and promptly shoved it to the bottom of my overflowing handbag.

As I darted up and down the aisles I was struck by a profound thought; a whisper in my ear, really. One of those moments of shear clarity. Here I was buying organic blueberries for rainbow-colored fruit skewers for a gaggle of three-year-olds who were probably only going to eat the cupcakes anyway, when there were entire families in need of basic things like toothbrushes and soap. I bought the soap. I also bought many other items on their list.

As mothers often do on their childrens’ birthdays, I had been remembering the day my daughter was born. I remembered the first donation made in her honor; the spark of good, the act of kindness. I decided then and there that this was going to be our family tradition.

Each year, on my children’s birthdays, we are going to find a way to give back. We are going put forth a conscious effort to honor the gifts we have been given in this world by giving of ourselves to others. We are going to give, sow, create and produce positive energy and good karma.

Later that day when the five butterflies fluttered away above our heads and into the sky I said a silent prayer. I prayed that the good deed of donating food to those in need, and the action of caring for and releasing the little butterflies into the world, would find its way back to us, to my daughter, really. And when it did, she would continue to do more good deeds and perform greater acts of kindness. That as a family we could create a never-ending circle of giving and getting love in the world.

Isn’t that what every parent wants for their child? A legacy of goodness?   (click to tweet)

Yes. I believe that everything we do matters. And even if we never understand the reason, there is always a reason. Because I believe Sir McCartney when he sings, “In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

And if you’re wondering what my third reason for donating the umbilical cord blood was… recycling. I also believe in recycling.

It’s good karma.

The New Ideal

Peter Paul Rubins- The Three Graces

This is a famous painting from 1638 by Peter Paul Rubins called The Three Graces. These women depict the Goddess daughters of Zeus, and in 17th century standards, they are exquisitely beautiful.

The first time I laid eyes on a “Rubinesque” woman I couldn’t stop playing the ‘what if’ game. What if I lived in a time when frizzy hair, hamstring cellulite and a big ass were ideal? What if famous painters were knocking down the drawbridge to my castle (because I would totes live in a castle) for the privilege to paint my perfect, bodacious curves onto canvas. What if there was a poor, thin peasant women who cherished every inch (and tried hard to keep) her postpartum body because it was the only time she thought she was truly beautiful? This is the exact opposite of what I happen to be doing now.

What if that ideal body type never changed and instead of today’s rail-thin models there were the likes of these women, scantily clad in lace and diamond-studded bras sashaying down the catwalk with their plump, washed-out thighs rubbing together? When they reached the end they would turn to the camera with a recalcitrant, droopy-eyed look of arrogance before whipping their fro around and smacking their ass with an audible THWAP? The subsequent butt giggle would prompt an uproarious applause and teenage boys everywhere would replay that shit on YouTube in slow mo. Seriously. What if?

At any given moment in history there are a set of popular “ideals.” The lucky individuals possessing those ideals are deemed most worthy. Today, it’s the man with the Rolex, hot car and hotter wife. It’s the woman with the perfectly spray-tanned yoga-body and Chanel sunglasses. It’s Jennifer Anniston, Kobe Bryant, the tall, blonde girl with the blue eyes and the Ivy League-er. These are the ones in our society, in our time, who have been anointed with the crown of worthiness and the rest of us are left to playing the ‘what if’ game.

But what if suddenly it was all different? What if, instead of perpetuating an ideal anything, we realized that every last one of us is the ideal everything. Utopia right? What if we realized that whether it be the 17th century or the 27th, people are all the same and worthy just the way they were born and by holding up some ideal on a pedestal is only perpetuating our illusion of separateness? Of someone being better than, or worse, more worthy of?

Because with your highest, most conscious, scientific mind wouldn’t you agree that in the end we are all the same? We all decompose into the same organic parts from whence we came so why not realize that while we’re here sharing the same planet and the same moment in time?  That we are all deserving of the same love, kindness, adoration and respect?

Even if we happen to be gay.

Just because it’s 2012 and being gay isn’t the ideal standard it shouldn’t mean that one should be made to feel less worthy of the equality most of us take for granted.

I the new ideal should be to stop creating ideals. And even if some people insist on having them, the rest of us should stop perpetuating them with our own feelings of inadequacy.

It’s time to start accepting one another as is…to live and let live…to be and let be… and to realize that times change, and as sad as it makes me that pouchy tummies went out of favor 400 years ago, it’s okay, I’m okay. It seems to me that the 21st century is as good a time as any to perpetuate the only true ideal which is Love. Simply, L.O.V.E.

But for the record, I would have totes been the Beyonce of the 17th century. Just sayin’.

And also, these women kinda look like lesbians, which was probably totes no big deal back then, too. Just sayin’.

“The love that you withhold is the pain you carry lifetime after lifetime.” ~Alex Collier

Global Consiousness… It’s Totally Significantly, Significant

Holy shit you guys, my brain just exploded. I ran across this tonight. WAIT! Don’t click it just yet. (That’s what she said. ;-) ) First, let me explain.

That link is to a static page from a Princeton University website. It explains an experiment that took place between 1998-2002 that attempted to measure global consciousness. It uses these little machines that look like power strips with no plug-ins called Random Event Generators (REGs). They were placed in different spots in the world and over a four-year period they measured electric pulses, static, wave lengths (things having to do with energy) and from these measurements, they produced a random set of numbers. When major events happened, (such as September 11th), these RANDOM Event Generators went all NOT RANDOM AT ALL.

Basically, when there was something that galvanized human thought and emotion, these REG’s showed there was definitely something going on energetically in the atmosphere to the point that it was statistically significant (which is science speak for, “why yes, these two things really do have something in common and complicated, irrefutable mathematical statistics proves it.”)

Remember how I was saying WE. ARE. ALL. JUST. ENERGY??

When I was in the eighth grade a friend and I ran across an article about mind reading. The article said that if you concentrated hard enough with another person, you could communicate telepathically. The article gave guided instructions on how to do this by guessing what color another person was thinking. To an eighth grade girl this stuff is like sour patch kids and full-sugar soda, totally irresistable. I remember sitting in a doorway entrance of our middle school waiting to be picked up from school when we tested this theory. We sat facing each other with our palms touching like the article suggested. When it came time for me to guess the color she was thinking, it totally freaking worked!!! It not only worked once, but it worked several times!!! Our little 13-year-old minds were sufficiently blown and we thought we were witches. Of course we used our powers for good and went about trying to get certain boys to like us (which I hate to say never really worked), but ever since that innocent, mind-reading experiment, I’ve been fascinated by the reality of this idea.

Fast forward seven years and you get to the part where I’m in college working as an intern for a television station. On one of the most boring morning shows known to man, at an ungodly hour wherein only birds should be awake, I was operating a teleprompter. I can’t remember the guest’s name, but the topic was consciousness (back before consciousness was cool). Whatever this guy said got me so intrigued that I went to the lecture he was promoting that evening. There, he had one of these Random Event Generators. At one point he asked the audience to simultaneously think positive thoughts and then watch the REG in action. It worked! Right before my very eyes this little machine fluctuated solely based on the collective consciousness in the room. But I didn’t believe it because of what I saw. I believed it because of what I felt. As I sat there in this room with 30-40 like-minded individuals all thinking positive thoughts, I felt the air change around me. All the sudden, I felt happier, more peaceful, at ease and at the risk of sounding like a total hippy… totally one with the universe dude. Consequently, it’s the same thing I feel at a really kick ass yoga class. If you pay attention, the feeling is real, it’s palpable, it’s irrefutable, it’s emotionally significant.

This single, anonymous, lonely, non-linking-to-anything-else-on-the-whole-Internet, web page, just proved something I’ve always believed, but could never prove with science. Yes, my mind is statistically, emotionally, significantly, sufficiently, blown.

There IS a collective conscience in this world. We are all a part of it. We are all connected through it. Because we are all just energy. Because WE. ARE. ALL.