Awakening to Oneness

As of today the Mayan calendar is finished. Now what are we going to do? Can our world, that is this week bulging to a population of 7 billion people, survive without it? For as long as I can remember, I have heard about the calendar and how it abruptly ends. It has been equated by some people’s belief that the world was coming to an end. Obviously the correlation did not exist.

But what if something is shifting in our brains or DNA that we are unaware of? What if we wake up tomorrow morning with much more consciousness and don’t even know it. What would that experience be? Would I still make a pot of coffee and read the morning paper? Or would I find myself caught in the present, meditating in front of my bonsai tree?

I want to be more conscious. The fleeting experiences of it that I have had have spaciously augmented my “present” moments. My “present” is changed in those moments because more of me shows up, keenly aware, focused, relaxed. I am changed. That is precisely what my experience has been like of being present in the moment. Change. Expansion. Peace.

I am angry with myself for all the moments I have missed by being distracted by some figment of drama that has taken up my daily life. As I look back on it I have had all the tools to live in the moment from the time I was very little. Certainly, all the psychological and spiritual work I have done since has headed me up the path of consciousness over and over again.

Still, when each moment comes it is still a crap shoot whether or not I will show up. I wonder if the Mayans got distracted from all their mathematics and astronomy and just stopped making their calendar? That would make sense in the model I am building for myself. And yet, I’m comparing my personal experience with an entire civilization of very intellectually advanced people.

I wonder if this is the way the collective works? It is difficult for me to grasp that what I do or do not do could affect the entirety of civilization, and yet in the deepest part of my being I know this is the truth. Each one of us has the ability to tip the consciousness scale from the personal to the collective. But what if I forget or my neighbor gets too busy or the folks in Kansas don’t know anything about a spiritual journey. I guess then we have a hundred monkeys that stay unconscious. At this point in my life that seems like a foolish waste, knowing and believing what I do about how the Universe works.

I believe we are all part of the same Oneness. Each of us is a facet of the whole of creation. I believe we are becoming more aware of the fact we are all One. I feel the connection to everything growing in this time we are living. Many people are afraid of our world falling apart, but isn’t that necessary so that it can be put together with a completely different kind of awareness.

The old ways thinking and being--of dominance, duality, and cause and effect--is breaking down. Now, instead of separation, we see people coming together globally in large groups with a common mind. That is the new consciousness emerging. We can no longer operate without a spiritual sense of all being One. It is no longer possible to feel superior when the technology of the world brings us face to face with starvation, poverty and death everywhere in the world, including where we are.

Many people are afraid. Change is scary. When I was little there was still the false belief that things would remain the same. But, today everything is different. It is an exciting time to be alive. It feels like we are on the brink of an amazing awakening. In a spiritual sense, haven’t we all chosen to be here at this time? That would indicate to me we have everything we need to make the shift.

Is this what the Mayans faced at their turning point in history? Did they not have the spiritual tools, the perseverance, the fortitude and internal strength to deal with change? Did they get caught up in the old way of thinking and let themselves be obliterated by war and death? Did they all die out from a cataclysmic event? Or did they just sit up one day and decide they didn’t want to get conscious and keeping such an elaborate calendar was not worth the effort?

Moms Know It All

My son and his wife just left this morning after staying with me for a holiday visit. I enjoyed their company immensely and had a wonderful time catching up and just being together. The challenge for me was to "see" things that were happening with them individually and together that were not heading in a good direction. The struggle was to hold my tongue and simply be supportive.

I am a good listener. After twenty-five years as a psychotherapist I have become quick at seeing what is going wrong in people's lives and knowing how to support looking at the situations in new ways to bring awareness to new ways of thinking. It isn't telling someone what to do and trying to change them to meet my opinion. It is more opening up options and creating possibilities for change in places in their lives that are not working.

Family and friends have totally different rules and the boundaries needed to stay very clear. For instance, it is off limits for me to use my "bag of psychotheraputic solutions" on those close to me. That creates an emotional conundrum when the person in question is your son. This is intensely difficult.

It is interesting to see my son's values and beliefs now that he is an adult. Some of them are ones I adhere to and share and others I don't know where he got. Some of it is his sense of himself and his self definition at this time. Some of it is just being young and not knowing himself as well as he will as he matures and goes through things in his life that will teach him lessons.

What Mother wants their children to have to learn lessons that might hurt them? No matter how old their child is, the impulse is the same as it was when they were little. Especially if you can see how a course of events is lining up like a freight train. Then it takes all of my energy and attention to stay quiet and let things play out.

Fortunately, I had an excellent model for this. My good friend and "chosen" Mother is an expert at listening and saying nothing. She is incredibly supportive but will not tell you what you are doing wrong or what the consequences might be if you continue in the current direction. She is inspiring and has become my mentor in this issue. I just have to think about what she would do and say, and I am able to stop myself from interfering.

The truth is, I don't even know if my observations are correct. Being close to someone scrambles perception. The issue is really trusting that you have done everything you can do to raise your child in the best way you knew how. Now it is time to trust what you have given them and trust that they will make good choices or know how to rectify situations as they arrive.

I do trust my son, possibly more that any other person on this planet. It is just that "Mom Knows It All" gene that kicks in and makes me want to intervene so my son won't get hurt. I feel that that impulse as a healthy one. The big issue is keeping quiet and letting things play out.

If I am asked my opinion about something, then I must find a way to be honest while not driving the bus with what I think. Again listening is the main tool for this. Being supportive doesn't mean being passive, because this doesn't help either.

This is my lesson to work on. When you have a child you have no idea all the lessons that will be presented to you, especially the ones you don't know how to handle. And it doesn't stop. My son is 30 and I am still having to consider and make mistakes and get my thinking straightened out. I consider it a lesson of love and am going to do everything in my power to get it right.