I am fortunate to live in a small community here on the coast, where the summer fog makes the days cool and the noise of cities is far away. But even here one cannot escape the toxicity of the present time, the miasma that is in the air and the strange distortions it creates. One can feel the fabric of life being torn. We are all a part of one living community, and its dystopian echoes can be felt even when my nearest neighbors are the deer and her fawns eating the early summer grass. The question we then need to ask is how does our spiritual practice respond to this broken time, how does our awareness breathe in this present landscape, moment by moment?

For the first decades of my journey I practiced the Sufi path in my teacher’s room where the focus was on an inner reality beyond time and space. This was the ancient path of the mystic where one turned away from the outer world, travelling within the heart. Satsang was the same in her North London room as in her guru’s garden in Northern India decades earlier. The focus was on awakening the divine love within the heart and merging deeper into this love and formlessness.

But in the years since, the landscape of our collective lives has changed, and I have come to see that there is a spiritual story happening in the world that needs our attention, needs a heart attuned to love. In some ways this response is similar to the engaged Buddhism of Thich Nhat Hanh, which combines inner spiritual practice and outward compassionate action, particularly as expressed in his Love Letter to the Earth, which blends mindfulness, ecological awareness, and a profound sense of interbeing.

But for me, this is also a deeply personal story as it is based upon visions that have come to me – visions that belong to this present moment in time, but also to unfolding patterns that stretch far into the future.

Today there is much talk of polycrisis, both ecological and social, and the real possibility of social collapse. And there is work happening in response to this possibility, and the resilience we will need to walk this uncertain future, this bardo between eras. Some, as in the Transition Town Movement, are creating communities that can better adapt to change. These and communities like them are focusing on restoration – the regeneration of ecosystems, reconnection with ourselves and nature, rewilding landscapes, regenerative agriculture, and other ways to bring ourself back into harmony with the living Earth. And these are all actions to be taken with love and attention, with care for our common home.

In the past I have called for a “deep ecology of consciousness,” in which we return our consciousness to the living Earth, no longer seeing ourself separate to its patterns of kinship, but part of the living tapestry of creation. We are all born of stardust and soil, and have the patterns of life within our DNA. And it is time to “rejoin the great conversation” with the rivers and the mountains, with the wind and the rain. And with this awareness I came to realize that the pollution of our air and oceans, and the toxicity of our present time are all part of a spiritual story which belongs to the end of an era. This is a story that has an outer and inner landscape. And central to this story is what I have called the Darkening of the Light.

This is not an easy story to tell, just as our present ecological story can at times bring an almost overwhelming grief. But until we recognize and accept the inner reality of what it means to live at the end of an era, we cannot fully participate, live the light of our spiritual nature at this time. And we are needed to live the truth of the present moment even as we work for a future seven generations or more.

We all live stories: the stories of our parents and families, the stories we pass onto our children, the stories of our race and countries, our communities, the places we live, the land we walk, the trees and skyline we see. Sometimes our stories change as we move, from cities to villages, or from farms to towns. I grew up in London, walked its city streets in my teenage years, and later moved to a small town on the California coast—a different story that seeped into my body and my breath. Here there is a story of watching the tides rise and fall, of fog in Summer and winter storms, of egrets brilliant white in the wetlands, and sometimes stories of fires, of the forests burning.

And then there are the deeper stories from beyond other horizons that take us on their journey. These are the stories I have been drawn to live, of visions and of other worlds, unseen but potent beyond my imagination. Stories of light and darkness, of what is sacred and what is forgotten. These stories haunt me, often because they are unsaid, or do not belong to the more recognized landscape of our lives. They do not fit into familiar patterns, but speak of a vaster landscape, of wisdom we have lost or a future we dare not see.

Maybe it is simplest to begin with a vision of three years ago, when I saw the future: how the next one hundred and more years will be a time of increasing insecurity, disturbance and chaos and then out of this will gradually emerge in two hundred years a new civilization, quite different to now.

A vision like this does not allow you to argue. It comes as a simple statement of fact, of deep awareness. It speaks of climate catastrophe and social collapse, of a world that will change beyond any present patterns. Of course, the details are unknown: how much the temperature will rise, how many millions of refugees will flee hunger or violence, or how our present systems will fail. But the vision stated clearly that the story of our present civilization is over. And there is little we can do to actually change this essential fact.

Following this vision came other, darker dreams. For years I have been aware of what I have called the Darkening of the Light, how as we come to the end of an era the light of the sacred recedes, a certain spark fading. This has been painful to witness, to watch this light beginning to withdraw.

Because without this light there can be no real change, no real transformation, just the shifting of surface patterns. Nothing new can be born. My children, grandchildren, and their children will have to watch and suffer the insecurity and then chaos, until the light returns and the seeds of a new civilization based upon living unity begin to flourish and grow.

As the future unfolds outposts of light will remain, small enclaves, often hidden, or seeming so ordinary that no one notices—except of course the angels, they always notice. They see what cannot be seen, where the visible and invisible meet, where the seeds of the future might be planted. Where the songlines are. And with the light that is left we need to know what can be saved, what virtues to pass on, what dreams belong to our destiny—what is already written and what is yet to be written.

The cycles of life follow the primal rhythms of the breath: the expansion of the out-breath followed by the contraction of the in-breath. And the out-breath is now ending. We are still living the story of fossil fuels and colonial exploitation, the myth of materialism, even as we watch it destroy our ecosystem with loss of biodiversity and rising temperatures.

But the coming time will force us to confront the reality of modernity’s collapse. Present work is urgently needed to prepare for this time – to develop the tools of resilience and learn how to adapt – not by stockpiling provisions or building walls, but by developing resilient communities grounded in loving kindness.

And because many have dismissed the existence of our inner world – believing in the collective myth of scientific rationalism in which only the physical world of matter exists – there is lack of awareness of how the outer darkening of ecological destruction is mirrored by an inner darkening; and the withdrawal of a certain spiritual light.  Most will be unprepared to navigate  this darkening, or understand its influence on our human journey. How we will live the light of our divine nature, both individually and collectively, with so little light to nourish us, to help us see what is true and real amidst the swirling miasma of illusion which surrounds us more and more?

In the sixties I witnessed this spiritual light come to the West, as different spiritual traditions and their practices arrived from India and the Middle East. It brought the promise of a new age dawning, together with meditation and chanting, yoga and breath practices, dervishes whirling, and sacred dance. So many were nourished by this light, as well as by all the sacred teachings, poems, and practices that were translated and made public – teachings that for centuries had been hidden away. In many ways it was a golden age of spiritual freedom and awakening. And behind it all was this divine light given to all those who turned away from the material world. A light that could nourish us in unseen ways, and reconnect us to our own soul and spiritual heart. Like Spring it was blossoms flowering.

Yet, this cycle of revelation is now ending, and what was revealed is being hidden once more. How much is part of our free will and how much is already determined? At this time we do not know.

How will it be to live in these coming years and decades? The simple joys and sorrows of life will continue—flowers opening in springtime, winter snow, the joy and tears of children and lovers. And the transformation of the heart will continue to unfold its mystery for those who belong to love, who stay true to its practices and principles.

But it will be hard to watch the deep patterns in life follow a path that humanity has chosen. Humanity will have to live through a chapter in the book of life that has already been written, especially visible in climate tipping points and accelerating ecological breakdown. Because we are conditioned by the idea of change and self-determination, this will be hard to accept. But humanity has made its choice and certain doors have been closed for many decades to come..

That is why the work of those who belong to love is just to stay with the Truth that is given and the simple mystery of light upon light – how the light of our aspiration attracts a light that is given. There is a vital need to hold true to this essential message of divine love, however the world turns. The world will change, transformation following a deeper rhythm than our present consciousness can grasp. The next era will arise out the debris of our present time, just as green shoots break open the ground of Winter. But this future will not be born from the images or patterns of the past, which is why all present projections of the future have little real substance. This deeper knowing is present, just like the body of a butterfly is present in a caterpillar, but our minds cannot grasp it.

For now we have to wait and watch, seeing both the growing darkness and the light that remains; the dream that is dying and a dream waiting to be born. We have to hold the threads of love that connect us, and the acts of care and generosity that express this love. Over the next years the darkening will tell its story, that of a world without foundations, and a climate catastrophe born from our own greed. We will watch our present civilization fall apart, and wonder if it could have been otherwise.

The future is written in a different book, one which belongs to the deeper destiny of the Earth and our journey together, written before the beginning. Because just as for each of us there is a story written in the book of life before we are born – a story that tells of our soul’s journey – so is it for the Earth Herself. Today our individual souls can appear to be separate from the World Soul: as Carl Jung said:

“Man himself has ceased to be the microcosm and his anima is no longer the consubstantial scintilla or spark of the Anima Mundi, the World Soul.”

And yet our soul and the World Soul are born from the same light, the light that exists before creation, and our destiny is bonded together with the Earth.[i] We evolve together. How this next stage in our shared evolution will manifest belongs to this deeper destiny