In the Shadow of the Phoenix
Over the last few months, I have been trying to make sense of the events around the world that seem to oppose everything compassionate and loving. Hate seems to be oozing out of every pore of those who are ignorant of other people’s differences, who are using religion and politics to explain and excuse their outdated and abhorrent beliefs, who choose to vilify those minorities already challenged by their own struggles fitting in. The LGBT community are a case in point. I am in that community.
I still struggle with my own body and this is made exponentially worse by those who choose to think I am less than them. The religious would prefer we didn’t exist then they would not have to deal with their own anger about us. But then, if one is not challenged to push against our boundaries, how would we evolve? We would simply stagnate in our own juices; stuck, waiting for the next shoe to drop; which never does.
As the prophetic article below explains, things have to be shown in order for us to deal with them. That which is no longer good and nurturing for society is being exposed and liberated so we can transform the hearts of those who are in continued pain, a pain fostered by the very beliefs they hold so dear.
When society is fracturing, do the opposite as this is the only way to stop those who benefit from the fracture. We need, must, come together to find the compassion which is just below the surface wanting, needing expression and oxygen.
I wrote the following article in 2011 and is more relevant today than ever before.
In the Shadow of the Phoenix
Written March 2011
For the last five thousand years, the Phoenix has been hiding from our gaze, waiting and resting, slumbering in hibernation, ready to awaken, surfacing when the time was right. Now is the perfect time for the Phoenix to rise once again, to be an agent of chaos. Chaos is not something to be feared but something to be embraced.
We detest change at a core level, fearful of the possible consequences we will have to experience. Change is the only constant in our universe so it is here to stay; and our fighting it, resisting it, our refusal to accept it, serves only to increase the pain within.
When the Phoenix emerges, for us the challenge is managing the onslaught of change and adjustment, a change we discover has no limits. Everything is being contested, questioned, viewed with new eyes, altered and broken down into its constituent parts. Cracks suddenly appear in our foundations, seemingly from nowhere; foundations of thought, belief, religion and politics and attitudes towards our fellow human and animal neighbours.
And now, with the abnormal weather patterns bringing freezing winters, scorching summers, floods, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes, the very foundations of our existence, our life on Earth, is being challenged, is becoming uncertain. The planet we rely on to provide sustenance, shelter and warmth is going through its own rebirthing pains, transforming itself to become something different to that it was before. This we cannot resist, cannot control, cannot oppose, as nature has its own power and in an intensity that is far stronger than we can possibly imagine. The Earth is not dependent on us as we are dependent on it.
Approaching us without constraint or limitations are new paradigms and new philosophies, new ways of being and seeing, new concepts of understanding. These are rising from ancient sources of knowledge laid down by our ancestors’ millennia ago and are set to revolutionise and reform the way we think, feel and act, not only towards ourselves but towards those people in distant lands. Compassion is required rather than judgement, communication rather than conflict, understanding rather than ignorance.
Many are now seeking freedom in their lives, possibly for the first time in many generations; freedom from oppression, from dictators, from religion, from politicians, freedom from those who would seek to bury inconvenient truths, to falsify, to lie, to cheat and from those who would use treachery to keep their positions in society at the expense of others.
With the advent of the internet, it is now impossible to hide inconvenient truths from view. Everything will come bubbling to the surface eventually, bringing with it the secrets, the lies, the abuses, the duty neglected and the exploitation of the many by the few. In the decades before, the secrets and the lies were hidden, could be hidden, would stay hidden. But now, the World Wide Web has provided the machinery of disclosure to the many thus highlighting the hypocrisy and duplicity of those in power. Those inconvenient truths can no longer fall between the cracks and vanish.
Change is not easy but if you resist and hold on so tightly to that which is passed, be it thought, belief, religion, attitude and money, it will not continue the same as before but will simply wither and shrivel, dying painfully until only the ashes remain. You succeed only in strangling the very thing you want to remain the same.
In generations past, it was feasible to hold on so firmly and so tightly to prevent change from taking place. Politicians and religious leaders are the main culprits of this and provide scapegoats as a form of distraction keeping the focus of the populace away from them and onto the innocent scapegoats. Those who chose not to follow the sheep at a minimum were often ostracised and pushed to the fringes of society, and at a maximum were beaten and tortured, and in many lands, slaughtered wholesale.
But now in the current climate where the agents of chaos are appearing suddenly and seemingly from nowhere, this strategy of diversion is no longer possible. Things have to find their own level, their own space and their own balance. Change from within rather than from without; society as well as the individual.
Agents of chaos only arise in situations where change is necessary, where resistance, disharmony and conflict are so entrenched that the destruction of what was must take place before the ashes can rebuild and transform into something new.
To live, that thought, belief, religion and attitude must be given freedom to breathe, to be allowed to transform into something different, something greater than before, to become joined and allied with similar or even opposing energies and beliefs that bring a coalition in which both survive in harmony and work towards a common goal. Both lose what no longer serves the whole and expands that which provides a pathway and a foundation for the greatest possible growth and the continued evolution of that whole.
Thus you can choose a direction that furthers your own interests at the expense of others but are you willing to accept the responsibility for the consequences of those choices?
Will you let your grip on the past cloud your perception of the unknown future inexorably hurtling towards you?
Will you have the courage to let go and embrace that which is sculpting itself out of the dust before your very eyes?
Choose for yourself which route you are willing to take.
Make your choices wise ones.