I heard from Moira McDougall in Christchurch, New Zealand, today, reporting on the shootings in two mosques. Moira says this:
Dear David!
Our city has been badly shaken. Many people are “shell-shocked” and slowly coming to realize that we are not, after all, totally isolated from the rest of the world by virtue of the fact that we live on 2 tiny islands in the middle of a nowhere ocean. People ask “Why Christchurch?” After all we have been through with the earthquakes. I ask “Why not?” We shall soon enough be able to read all the details as they emerge and try to make some sense of a senseless and violent act perpetrated by a tortured soul. More than ever, I call on my Creative Field connections to hold us steady and to allow Love to Radiate with Purposeful Powerful Intent. This time of sorrow shall NOT define us. Having grown up amidst the violence of terrorism in South Africa, I am perhaps better prepared emotionally. I am so grateful knowing that our Emissary Family is holding me, and Christchurch, in a circle of Love and Light.
I wrote back to her:
Thank you for your report, Moira. On behalf of Sunrise Ranch, and Emissaries everywhere, I share our solidarity with the people of Christchurch as they face this shocking incident and mourn those who have left. Yes, we hold you in a circle of Love and Light.
I make this declaration on my own behalf and on behalf of any who would like to join me:
Today, we are all New Zealanders.
Today, we are all Muslims.
Today we decry prejudice, bigotry and hatred in all its forms. They have no place in the world we are creating.
But more than that, we bring Love and the pattern of Love’s Creation in which every person has their place. We honor the sacred dignity of each one.
Today, we are part of a global emergence of a new culture that carries the seeds of our collective future.
* * * * * * *
With the inspiration to sow the seeds of a new future, we are creating an online platform—Global Emergence: Regenerative Culture for a New World. It has been a dream for at least ten years to create a place online where truth can be freshly spoken and where awake and awakening people from around the world can gather.
There are many who have contributed to this dream. Recently I found myself in a room with several others. Many of those who had contributed to the dream of this online platform were not in the room or actively involved in the project now. So it was really coming down to those of us who were gathered there together to open up to whatever genius was available to us and birth this online platform. And I felt a special responsibility to carry the dream forward.
I found myself thinking how life is like that. There’s so much that leads up to this present time and space—so many wonderful ideas, and so many dreams and visions. There is the legacy of all that has gone before. Yet we come here to this present moment to do the immediate work of giving birth to this new platform for the spiritual regeneration of humankind.
I can dream and dream, and I have all kinds of ideas about where this could go; and in the middle of all that, we are in the here and now. My observation is that people, generally speaking, underestimate the opportunity that is in the here and now. So much relies on the creative urge and the artistry within us now. So much relies on our ability to create a field of genius among us, through which something beautiful and world-changing might be born. And it always comes down to the question: Who is available for that? Who is in the game for that?
Keahi Ewa shared the image of a tug-of-war. That is often how it is, thinking with other people. There are your ideas and my ideas, and competition among them. Which one is better? All kinds of emotionality come into that. The second of Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements is “Don’t Take Anything Personally.” In a thinking environment, taking things personally kills good thinking. I agree with Keahi: Drop the rope! End the tug-of-war.
When we transcend the personal, we are in a field of creative thought, and I don’t care who has the thought first or who speaks it first. Sometimes my friends get angry with me because of that. I’m liable to express some creative thought that I’ve heard from them and speak it as if it’s my own. While I respect intellectual property, for the most part, I don’t remember where a thought came from, and I am not terribly concerned with that. It doesn’t much matter who thought it first, and I am not claiming a certain thought as my own—except to know that it’s mine to think now and mine to express into the world. It’s not a personal matter to me. It’s about the field of genius that we are in and each of us being activated to bring our genius as an artist of creation.
This online platform needs that kind of artistry. But so does everything else. We are creating a field of consciousness—a field of mind and thought and a field of heart, into which genius comes, so that a new world is born. When consciousness changes, culture changes. And when consciousness and culture change, what manifests in the world changes. It always starts in consciousness first, and then in culture. And then it can manifest in the physical lives of people and the planet. We are not only changing our own lives; we are changing life on this planet because of what is being created in and through consciousness.
Here in March, a line from a Christmas carol is coming to mind:
For in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
That was speaking of Bethlehem. In the Bible, cities are often symbols for consciousness. The city of Bethlehem is a state of mind and heart that is a place of birth. In this city that we are sharing together, the hopes and fears of all the years are being met. Just as the hopes for this online platform were met in that meeting…the hopes and fears of all the years….
We can feel the thread of legacy, and in our minds we may trace it back to the Big Bang or to the dawn of history. We may trace it back to a man of love who walked the earth two thousand years ago. We may trace it back, in the United States of America, to the Founding Fathers, and to the Founding Mothers as well. We could think back to the founding of Emissaries of Divine Light and the founding of Sunrise Ranch, and the lineage of all that is bringing us to this great thrust of creation now. And here we are. There are all the hopes and fears, and also all the vision about what is possible for us as human beings and what is possible on this planet for us as humankind.
There is also the sense of the heavens that look down upon us—all the constellation of Being throughout the cosmos. And yet here we are, planted in the here and now. It’s up to us. We are the ones in this space, in this time, with our genius of thought and the liberation of heart and mind for each of us, and then for us together, owning our creative capacity, our very nature as a creator, as an artist of creation, an artist of life. We are owning all that is in focus and at play here and now. What will be conceived in this collective consciousness with people around the world? Every moment of our interchange is a creative opportunity.
The field of consciousness that we share doesn’t sit isolated from all the other dimensions of reality. What we think is attached to what we do, and it’s attached to what we feel. It’s attached to the energy field that we are sharing. Thought doesn’t come just as a mental exercise alone. The field of thought that we are in is a field of energy and a field of emotion. Becoming aware of this field, we are touching the very fabric of Creation that we are weaving together. It doesn’t weave very well if we are in a tug-of-war. But with our openness and our delight in the very process of Creation together, we share the weaving.
In a forum on CNN this morning, speaking about the shooting in Christchurch, commentators were accusing public figures of failing to properly address the issues. In the middle of the discussion, Mia Love, former Republican Congresswoman from Utah, quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.
And then she added:
And I’m waiting for people to actually start talking about love language….
I could feel everything in me melt. How beautiful!
Prejudice, bigotry and hatred are ultimately the lack of something. It is a lack of love and the ordering power of Creation that comes on the wings of love. We couldn’t decry the lack of that enough to create a new world. But we can bring a new world through our collective genius.
How brilliant could that genius be?
In thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light….
How brilliant could that light be in our creation? In our artistry? I think about that every day. I think, How could I say it? How could I show it? How could I display it artistically? How could I make it so vividly present that it changes the world?
Do you think about that? I take that as a personal challenge in life, as a teacher, as an artist, as a speaker, as one of the people who is creating Sunrise Ranch. Our creation depends on our collective genius. How do we show the everlasting light in a way that no one could walk by and not pay attention? How could they not see it, and say, There is the beauty of what a human being is, what life is, what this planet is, what our future is. I am not walking by. I am part of that beauty.
There is so much that has brought us to the time and place in which we find ourselves. The heavens are supporting us and urging us onward. The future depends on you and me and all the conscious human beings present around the globe. And here we are, with the supreme calling to come together in our collective genius to allow for a Global Emergence. Those who came before and those who come after, and the invisible Beings who are the angels in heaven, cannot apply their creative artistry to the needs of this day. Only we, who are present here and now, can do that. My prayer is that we see our opportunity and offer our minds and hearts to this Global Emergence now, creating living forms that shine the everlasting light. I pray that our thoughts weave together to create Regenerative Culture for a New World.
Others may commit acts of physical violence in the world. They may do violence to the world culture in which we live and to the field of thought, feeling and faith known by humankind. As awakening people, we keep the conscious field we share safe—unmarred and undeterred by the violence of others. We are talking the language of love. We shine the everlasting light.