(Carol Robertson, on Vancouver Island, BC, shared her original poem “Stillness Is Now.”)

Stillness
Aaahhh – Stillness
Breathe it in.
Breathe it out.

In the midst of the explosion of colour
And deepening green of summer,
Breathe stillness in.
Breathe stillness out.  

In the midst of insults, rhetoric
And loud exclamations
Breathe stillness in
Breathe stillness out.

In the midst of activity, brainstorming,
And deep feeling
Breathe stillness in
Breathe stillness out.  

In the midst of joy, happiness,
And deep love
Breathe stillness in
Breathe stillness out.  

Let it all be held
In stillness.

(Kristin Hoffman, in Brooklyn, New York, presented her original song “At the Core.”)

When the hate comes, let there be love
And when the night falls, let there be peace
And when the dark cloud over our heads
releases its grasp on our hearts and our souls
May we re-member…  

We’re whole…
Connected at the core
One people, we’re whole
Connected at the core of it all  

When the fear comes, let there be love
And when the tears fall, let there be peace
And when the violent fist of the lost ones crashes down…
Breaks our hearts, chains our souls
May we re-member…   

We’re whole…
Connected at the core
One people, we’re whole
Connected at the core, soul to soul  

And when the fever starts to flare
We’re gonna shake down, shake it down, shake it down
And when those guns are in the air
We’re gonna lay them down, lay them down, lay ’em down
And re-member…  

We’re whole
Connected at the core
One people, we’re whole
Connected at the core of it all (Repeat) 

How do we change the trajectory of our lives?

When I think of trajectory, I think of the importance of letting love in—love being the power of the universe and what powers us as human beings. And it has to be let in, in the unique way that we welcome that as human beings. It must go through the human heart to impact our human experience and to empower us. And so, ultimately, changing the trajectory of our lives requires a powering up that can only happen when we let it in. There are so many blocks, so many hurts, so many reasons why a person doesn’t feel that they’re ready to surrender to Universal Love and let it in.

And so we could go to somebody who might be able to help us with that. We could go to an environment that is safe for our heart, and in that safe environment feel relaxed and open and ready to let love in. We could feel the safeness of the space that we’re in, and in that safety we might receive. We can open to a depth of feeling, and we can begin to have new thoughts about our life, and a sense of new possibility. As long as we’re not letting in new thought, new possibility, we’re left to chew on the old thoughts—the old and tired ones that go round and round. But nothing really fresh and new is available to us until we’re ready to let go of those old thoughts and let our minds open up and be inspired to think something new, until we let it in.

I love Kristin’s lyrics:

When the fear comes, let there be love.
And when the tears fall, let there be peace.

We can go looking for someone who can help us open to love and help us open to new thought, and yet ultimately we are called upon to discover how to do that as an individual. I don’t think we ever outgrow the blessings brought to us by other people, and yet still we come to a self-sufficiency where we bring ourselves and our own spiritual practice into a place of letting love in profoundly. And come to a place where we think a new thought, have a new idea, and see a new possibility. When that happens, we power up. We come to an internal point of choice where we decide that it’s time to take flight. It’s time to come to a higher place in ourselves, to a place of higher vision, so that we can see more of the scope of our world, so that we can come out into our world in a new way. We can reach out and connect with others.

That is our calling, I believe, as men and women. It is a calling to allow our spirit to be set free into the space that we are in, in the world that we are in, and to come out of a retracted place that is full of protection and self-defense. In an expanded place of awareness, our spirit is moving out into the world. We have a presence that’s larger than our own immediate space. We have powered up.

With the power of Universal Love ignited in us, we find a trajectory that carries us someplace when we are pointed in a direction that is around 45 degrees off dead level. It doesn’t work to be totally vertical. You could attempt a spiritual practice to bring you to some kind of enlightenment, some kind of transcendence, as we think of it, so that you can go straight up. But it’s a little bit like that rocket that exploded in Japan yesterday shortly after liftoff. It went up, and it came back down with a crash. That can happen in a spiritual practice. There is some kind of lofty ascension in consciousness that comes crashing down in the light of day. That’s what happens when we attempt to set a trajectory that is entirely vertical.

It is also true that if we try to move out into our world without any altitude, we get caught in the weeds. We reach the end of the runway and hit the trees. That is what happens when we attempt to set a trajectory that is entirely horizontal. We need some altitude; we need to climb.

On takeoff an aircraft needs to face the headwind. The headwind gives lift to the plane. And yet, when we’re in a retracted state we’re not welcoming the headwind. We see all the adversarial things out in our world—the forces that seem to be working in the wrong direction—and if fear overtakes us we retract and crumble. We don’t face the fear and move into it. We retract even more than before. When the tears fall, we feel crunched and don’t move.

There is a time for surrendering. For letting it in and powering up. And then, if that truly has happened for us, there is a time for liftoff. I think often the word transcendence is thought of as leaping over—perhaps as some kind of spiritual bypass. I like this definition that Merriam Webster offers for the word transcend:

To triumph over the negative or restrictive aspects of….

When we move out into and through our world with altitude, there is liftoff. We move through the headwind. There is altitude that we gain. The direction of our lives starts to head someplace creative with power.

Taking flight, we begin to feel our presence in a larger space, and we begin to feel the natural power that we have as a man or a woman to bring into our world. I’m not talking about a power over. I’m talking about the primal powers of Creation that are present within us—the uplifting power we have to give to another human being when we have attained liftoff, and the empowering invitation “You come, too.”

When we’re embroiled in the cultural, social and personal battles of the world in which we live, it’s impossible to reach liftoff. As we look around at the world today, there are so many competing ideas. Many competing cultural norms and politics. We probably look at it all and look at both sides to any issue, whatever it might be, and think, “There’s nothing good to choose from here!” When you look at it all, there are the makings of a creative world, but not a creative world. And what’s really needed is someone who sees things from a higher perspective, who sees, yes, there are all these components of what could be a joyful and creative culture, and a joyful and creative life. But pieces alone—particularly when they’re not synergized with each other but are competing and fighting—don’t make a whole.

I love the words to Kristin’s song:

We’re whole…
Connected at the core,
One people, we’re whole
Connected at the core, soul to soul.

That’s the truth. But who sees it? So much of what’s on display of human attitude and behavior is fractious emotionality that we would understand in a child but which is unbefitting to a physical adult. It cries out for some kind of eldership on the scene, some kind of height of perspective that knows how it all fits together and calls it together. We need primal elders in the world in which we live. Not particularly old people. I like old people and I’m becoming one myself, but I’m not talking about that. Who could look at this world today and not see that there’s a need for primal elders, a kind of eldership that seems to have gotten lost in some distant past?

And while we can’t go back to that past, we need primal elders on the scene today; people who see from a higher perspective, people who have found the true trajectory of their own life and have achieved liftoff. Such people see a bigger picture of the world. They call the world to wholeness and, in essence, say,

We are whole. Re-member. We are connected at the core.

 We’re connected with the core of love in ourselves. And then, when we are connected there, we are connected with each other. Or at least connected in life with anyone else who is connected in that place. We don’t have to make it so; we don’t have to try to achieve it. It is a truth that we know. And when you know that truth and I know it, it is a reality that we’re sharing, not a reality we have fabricated.

One people, we’re whole,
Connected at the core…

You come, too. Come with me on that journey, following the true trajectory of a human life.

Even though our life depends on our individual trajectory, it’s not a solo flight. We are in this together as a great flock of humanity, and so we become vitally interested in the trajectory of humanity, and in playing our part. We become someone who sees from an altitude and has some understanding of what’s happening for human beings—not only what’s gone wrong but also what’s required for us as humanity to achieve liftoff.

I don’t think things will go well for us if we stay grounded in this cycle, without any perspective, moving through the weeds and just fighting our way through it and ultimately fighting with each other. And then fighting with this planet on which we live. The prognosis is not good in that scenario. But when we tap into the power that can give us liftoff, and we get our own vessel pointed in the right direction, we’re not just going up and crashing back down, and we’re not just going through the weeds. We are taking flight—ascending up into the jet stream—and finding that there are things available to us in that jet stream that aren’t available in any other way.