As we embark upon the journey of 2015, I am dreaming of a world in which we remember, as the indigenous people do, that our Story of Separation is only an illusion, that we are all connected, not just to other people, but to the plants, the animals, the mountains and rivers and oceans, that we cannot harm one another, we cannot violate nature, without directly harming ourselves.
What would a world governed by our certainty of Oneness be like?
I just had the unspeakable privilege of living in such an experiment while spending most of December in Australia, preparing to speak at the Uplift Festival amidst a group of modern day spiritual teachers, indigenous elders, and sacred activists. The experience was so profound, moving, and hopeful that I was launched into a phase of grief after leaving our bubble of Oneness in Byron Bay. Even though I know this shift towards Oneness is already underway, and more and more of us are acting from a space of kindness, generosity, compassion, appreciation, and love, I still found it hard to walk through the airport on the way home and feel the pain of the remains of the separation story among us.
What’s Next?
I’m still integrating and digesting it all and asking myself, “What’s next?” How do we go about dreaming into being such a world, characterized by compassion, collaboration, imagination, flow, interconnectivity, recognition of our inner Divinity, and respect for Mother Gaia in all her glory, a world free of the greed, competition, anger, selfishness, judgment, and righteousness that stem from the Story of Separation?
What’s next? How do we balance our tendencies towards Being versus Doing? Is it enough for each of us to do what it takes individually to peel back those layers of All That Is Not Us so that we collectively raise the vibration of the planet? Or is there more to do? Is this a time of exiting the old systems? Should the doctors just quit participating in a system that is so out of alignment with their nature as true healers? Could we as doctors possibly just leave our emergency rooms untended in protest of the old way that isn’t working? What about our commitment to care, our ethics? Should the lawyers who really care about real justice stop going to the courthouse? Should the teachers who really believe in educating our children to be conscious humans just walk out of the schools? Should the politicians who truly care about their constituents walk out of the vote because they know money will win, rather than true democracy? Should the bankers who know that the economic system is all one big sham ready to dissolve with the slightest unraveling quit signing the loan checks? Should the corporate executives, asked to compromise their integrity every day by putting money ahead of sensitivity to good people and nature, just go fishing?
Should we just quit participating in a culture of separation so a culture of Oneness begins to reconstruct it effortlessly from a new consciousness of interconnectivity? Should we all just sit down right where we are, opening our hearts, freeing ourselves from all judgment or victim stories, holding hands with one another as we imagine this more beautiful world? Should we just occupy the new world and refuse to participate in the old? Would this catalyze a revolution of love?
Or is it time to do something more active? Where do we start?
What Would LOVE Do?
I, for one, feel called to love more. When I’m making daily decisions, I ask myself “What would LOVE do?” Right now, in this Now moment, love wants to use me to write. Aside from that one inspired action, I am just surrendering it all, turning it over to Divine Will and trusting that we will be guided in the direction of That Which Wants To Become. This guidance will not be subtle.
Perhaps we are simply in that space between stories, as Charles Eisenstein, who also spoke at the Uplift Festival, so eloquently describes in his book The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible:
The old world falls apart but the new has not yet emerged. Everything that once seemed permanent and real is revealed as a kind of hallucination. You don’t know what to think, what to do; you don’t know what anything means anymore. The life trajectory you had plotted out seems absurd, and you can’t imagine another one. Everything is uncertain. Your time frame shrinks from years to this month, this week, today, maybe even this present moment. Without the mirage of order that once seemed to protect you and filter reality, you feel naked and vulnerable, but also a kind of freedom.
Possibilities that didn’t even exist in the old story lie before you, even if you have no idea how to get there. The challenge in our culture is to allow yourself to be in that space, to trust that the next story will emerge when the time in between has ended, and that you will recognize it. Our culture wants us to move on, to do. The old story we leave behind, which is usually part of the consensus Story of the People, releases us with great reluctance. So please:
If you are in the sacred space between stories, allow yourself to be there. @Lissarankin
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It is frightening to lose the old structures of security, but you will find that even as you might lose things that were unthinkable to lose, you will be okay. There is a kind of grace that protects us in the space between stories. It is not that you won’t lose your marriage, your money, your job, or your health. In fact, it is very likely that you will lose one of these things. It is that you will discover that even having lost that, you are still okay. You will find yourself in closer contact to something much more precious, something that fires cannot burn and thieves cannot steal, something that no one can take and cannot be lost. We might lose sight of it sometimes, but it is always there waiting for us. This is the resting place we return to when the old story falls apart. Clear of its fog, we can now receive a true vision of the next world, the next story, the next phase of life. From the marriage of this vision and this emptiness, a great power is born.
What do you think? What’s next for you? What’s next for us?
Deeply hopeful,
Lissa
PS. If you liked the excerpt I included here, you can read Charles Eisenstein’s book The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible for free online. I just finished reading this book, and I have to say, it is HANDS DOWN the most life-altering book I’ve read all year. As a handbook for how we end the Story of Separation, this book could save Mother Gaia and our species. It will also uplift you deeply and evolve your soul. Highly recommended. Please read it and pass it along.
Lissa Rankin, M.D., New York Times bestselling author of Mind Over Medicine and the upcoming The Fear Cure, is a physician, author, speaker, and founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute, a training program for physicians and other health care providers. She is on a mission to merge science and spirituality in a way that not only facilitates the health of the individual; it also heals the collective. Lissa also co-teaches teleclass programs about spirituality, such as Medicine For The Soul with Rachel Naomi Remen, MD and Coming Home To Your Spirit with Martha Beck, PhD. Read her blog and learn more at LissaRankin.com.
