On Evolution and Our Collective Conscious

Did you ever have a day where you changed so much that you knew that you would never be the same again? A day where you could never return to your old way of life, to your old way of looking at yourself? Today was such a day for me.

It was an ordinary day, as far a Christmases go. We did the ordinary things one does on Christmas. My husband and I had a leisurely breakfast as we waited for our daughter and son-in-law to come from his family’s home. Their tradition is to gather on Christmas Eve in front of the fire. Ours is to share Christmas morning, so we work well together.

I didn’t change externally. I made the Christmas dinner—chicken breasts stuffed with spinach and feta cheese, garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli with my specialty spinach and cranberry salad on the side. After dinner, I lost the “Worst Case Scenario” Survival game we played together, but my husband won, and since he rarely wins or plays any of our games everyone was happy for him.

We spent time together figuring out how to use some of our gifts. I got the photo key ring I had my eye on for years. I gave my husband a portable battery car charger/tire inflator. He discovered you can also plug your coffee pot into it in case of a blackout! Ben and Kjersti had fun trying to figure out how to connect a dance program to the TV.

Later on the kids went out to see a movie, my husband fell asleep watching a James Bond movie, and I came upstairs to reflect on the past few days. I had just come back from the second week of my Healing class. In this first year the focus is on discovering/uncovering the self. No matter how much I know about me, there’s always more to be revealed.

I’ve spent a large portion of my life trying to discover my self, my purpose, my direction, my offering. My questioning has always been to be shown my gifts and how they can be used for the sake of a higher purpose. That changed when our daughter got married and I asked instead, what do I need to do for me in order to do those big things.

Since then it has been a roller coaster ride of feelings, expansions and contractions, some gentle, some not. Trying to get in touch with my power has been a recurring theme. Finally I sat down with a paper and pencil and said, “Ok, show me what my power looks like.” I drew a strongly spinning force in the middle of the page with definite roots connecting to the Earth, two large spinning forces on my right and left, and energy flowing down from above. I wrote: supported from above, from ancestors/ spirits/ guides, from the Earth.

On the next page I drew a picture of my fear: one dot, alone. I looked from one page to the next. It made no sense. My power was in all the support I knew/felt I had, my fear in not having that support, of being/feeling alone. The dichotomy was too obvious for me to ignore or to fool myself any longer. Time to step into my power.

But this wasn’t what changed my life. It was a big step, but one that has been coming for a while. No, I was still baking when I had another revelation during the writing of my Wisdom University paper. We had to discuss our understanding of the relationship between wisdom and civilization. I began by writing that it is our time to let the power of a mother’s love shine through us. When we are aware, we see it everywhere. Our power does not have to be centered on arrogance, dominance, or possessiveness. Our inheritance is a consciousness of relationship that can be seen and remembered in a mother’s love.

This mother’s protection, which has followed us through the rise and fall of greater and longer lasting civilizations than the American Empire, is about to push us out of the nest to see if we truly are able to fly. At this moment, my interior journey came to have no meaning. What is amazing about our species, Homo sapiens, is that our unique self—rife with values and self-enlightenment, is on an even keel with other species in that we are unable to enter a New Age individually. We must enter as a species, or not at all.

This is our key to understanding the relationship between wisdom and civilization. We may individually glimpse higher states of consciousness, find moments of extraordinary insight and discover the unlimited potential of the human being. However, how often do we hold on to these moments in ordinary society, or even within the familiarity of our family life—and make it matter?

But wait! This still was all churning within me the night before Christmas as I barely made the deadline for writing my paper. Stay tuned for Part 2 to watch the drama unfold further as I sat in the attic after the hustle and bustle of Christmas contemplating the reality of evolution and our Collective Conscious.