transform (Newsletter)

I burst into tears when I heard that Dolly Parton had left us. Damn, we didn’t need that right now. But then again, perhaps we did. Nothing makes the brilliance of a life more obvious than when someone dies. What a light, what a talent, what a burst of love, what a powerful woman, what a talented artist, and what a generous soul she was on every level. Her light lives on and will bless us all.

With ten weeks to go before the midterm elections, the country is embroiled in conversations that are anything but calm. Looking at social media, you’d think we were just one big argument. But reports say the extreme positions we see blaring at us on various platforms represent the views of only 6 per cent of the electorate, while 80 per cent of us don’t dwell on the fringes at all.

When I first picked up A Course in Miracles I was a woman in my twenties. At first I had no idea what was meant by the word “miracle,” but I was certainly intrigued when I found out. A miracle is simply a shift in perception. But a shift in perception is everything when you realize that all thought takes form on some level. The realization that thought is the level of Cause, and our experience of the world is the level of Effect, is life-changing when we allow it to be.

When we take in the destructiveness that’s evident all around us - from active attacks on the rule of law, to the brutality of ICE ,to naive complacency before efforts both political and religious to demolish what is best in us - it’s easy to despair. And despair is not a dysfunctional response to the moment we’re living in. None of us are alone to feel it. We need to feel it to understand it. We created all this, and only we can uncreate it.

Many years ago when visiting Washington D.C., I went to the Capitol to have lunch with then Representative Dennis Kucinich. He was taking me upstairs to the Congressional dining room, and when the door to the elevator opened there stood then Congressman Lindsey Graham. Much to my surprise, the very progressive Dennis and the very conservative Lindsay were all over each other with friendly affection. “Hey Lindsay!” “Hey Dennis!” They were like old buddies, while I stood there surprised and confused.

A paradigm shift means changing not just how we see one thing but how we see all things. It’s a fundamental change in perspective, providing a larger context and a different filter through which to view the world. The paradigm shift most needed now involves the dismantling of a thought system based on fear, to a thought system based on love. It’s a spiritual transformation from a sense that we are separate from the world, to the recognition that we are one with it.

The resistance to AI data centers is growing, forming a genuinely grass roots movement made up of people from all political stripes. I talked to Saul Levin about it a couple of days ago, hoping to clarify some of the issues involved so we can feel more empowered to take effective action. The issue here is not anti-technology. Rather, it’s a repudiation of the overreach by huge tech companies running roughshod over communities all over America.

Our world has been splintered. I’m reminded of what happened to me in the early 1980’s, when a terrible incident initiated what many would call a mental breakdown. I felt at the time as though my head exploded into thousands of little pieces, all of which slowly and painstakingly came back together. Once they did, there was something inside my brain - my consciousness, my spirit, whatever we call it - that had not been there before. My career began not too long afterwards.

In A Course in Miracles it says happiness is a decision we must make. Clearly some situations make us happier than others, but in the final analysis happiness stems not from this or that happening so much as from a consistent frame of mind. Someone once told me many years ago, “You’re a sufferer.” It was a shock to me at the time and I never forgot it.

In A Course in Miracles it says we can have a grievance or a miracle but we can’t have both. We can either identify with harm that was done to us, or with our capacity to move beyond it. In either case, future circumstances that confirm that we were right. Whichever perspective we choose to give power will greatly influence what happens next. Sometimes victimhood becomes our schtick, however subtly, and in today’s world there’s lots of support for that.