Century of Awakening
Dear Reader,
It may seem counterintuitive to call our present era the Century of Awakening. The outward signs seem to suggest otherwise. I won’t enumerate the challenges we face. You know in your heart that the situation is difficult and the path ahead unclear. And whether you have been in lockdown or on the front lines this past year, the worry you feel for our children, and their children, is the same.
But awakening begins precisely where we are. Not in some time or place free from discomfort or fear. Awakening begins when we stop and sense deeply our own tender heart and the pain we feel for the world’s beauty and brokenness. In these moments, it is helpful to step outside, away from screens and technology. It helps to look at the sky, feel the wind, touch a spring flower.
Here in the northeast US, the tree outside my door that looked bleak and brittle just a week ago is suddenly sprouting thousands of tiny buds. The smiling crocuses miraculously arrive. By connecting even for a moment with this profound mystery of Return, I feel lighter and more hopeful.
With Spring and the Covid vaccine there is a tentative sense we too can begin anew. It is never too late to start over, to commit to new ways of being and let go of old habits and past traumas. The moment we make the conscious choice to start fresh, we feel better. What we were doing before was not working. We don’t have to do that anymore. The Earth is alive. We are alive!
In this edition, we are not offering solutions to our knottiest global concerns. We are sharing signs of freshness and hope. We embrace a renewed opportunity and a choice: to honor and protect the sacred, or ignore and betray it. What must we honor? All of it. People, animals, plants, minerals, air, waters, soils, forests, oceans, pollinators, our Commons, communities and rituals. Stories, art, music…
Even technology – or especially technology – must be put to sacred use. Cyberspace, artificial intelligence, robots and drones, bio-engineering…if we do not hold these technologies sacred, as our ancestors once held fire sacred, these things will consume us.
We resacralize something by treating it with respect and reverence. Even the simple act of drinking tea can be a profound act, as a Buddhist monk very dear to me explains in this short video.
Drinking Tea as a Sacred Practice
What we love we make sacred. That is why our time can and will be the Century of Awakening. Life is too precious, the human experience too extraordinary to allow it to fail.
Recent photos from Mars show us our planetary home in a new way. There we are – a glittering star on the horizon. Every joy and every sorrow ever felt by any sentient being that we know of, embodied in a single point of light.
It is an invitation to wake up to the reality that binds us – to each other and all beings. Ours will be the Century of Awakening when we fully acknowledge the gift of Life, and our awesome responsibility to receive it.
Aloha* dear Kosmos Journal editor, Rhonda
Respectfully, and kindly, consider the profound reverence for living, traditionally implied in this Hawaiian greeting* of older, even past, generations of Hawaiians effectively presencing in Presence as they were meeting, and when departing from, each other, essentially acknowledging aloud ‘We are in Presence/in presence of the Great Spirit’…
I empathize with you Rhonda of the crying need “We resacralize … with respect and reverence. … People, animals, plants, minerals, air, waters, soils, forests, oceans, pollinators, our Commons, communities and rituals. Stories, art, music… Even technology – or especially technology – must be put to sacred use.” Yes “All of it”❣️
George Pór of ‘Enlivening Edge’ also enjoins us “Friends, reinventing organizations will risk to not have a truly lasting effect without also reinventing ourselves, our relationships, our social and planetary systems.”
In the essay ‘Our Imperative Awakening to Thrivability this Century’ I wrote with Annie Spade’s collaboration and complementary to her “Scaffolding for a Thrivable Planet – On Releasing the Power of Childhood” published in this Spring 2021 edition of Kosmos Journal, I was also moved to make the following point:
“Over recent decades there have been several nobly inspired, and certainly inspiring, visionary initiatives to alert citizens and nations worldwide to crucial, though seemingly lofty, ideals. Nonetheless, I sense that complementary to open hearts, and open minds, there needs be profound awakening of souls! How else can we reasonably hope for the prerequisite qualitative shift in our human relationships?” https://thrivableworld.mn.co/posts/our-imperative-awakening-to-thrivability-this-century-tex-j-g-albert-laval-quebec-19-02-2021
Mahalo (i.e. my sincere profound gratitude, respect, and reverence, for all your active, even pro-active, praxis of presencing in Presence) dear editor and team at Kosmos Journal
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