FROM YANGXIETY TO YINSIGHT: THE BALANCE OF THE EQUINOX

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FROM YANGXIETY TO YINSIGHT:
THE BALANCE OF THE EQUINOX

Well, friends, here it is. The long-awaited beginning of spring and the point of sacred balance between the dark and the light. As Uranus leaves Pisces, where it’s been lurking for the last seven years in Neptunian formlessness, it now moves into Aries, the start of the zodiac, signifying the start of a whole new cycle, with new fire and focus. No wonder we’re getting earthquakes and threats of meltdowns. The fires of transformation are upon us. But how do we ride all this energy with balance and equanimity?

Too much fire can be too much yang, and with all the radiation panic, it seems the whole culture is suffering from yangxiety. Most people are yanged out – too much to do, too much stimulation, moving too fast, and face it, too much masculine paradigm superimposing itself on the natural world.

Isn’t the threat of nuclear radiation pouring into the air, water, and earth near one of the largest and most productive cities in the world enough cause to make us all stop and think about what we are doing and where we are going? (as if we didn’t already have enough reasons). If this doesn’t do it, what will it take?

What we need for balance is a little yin-sight. Slow down, take some quiet time to reflect, have a nice long bath and think things through. Emptiness softens, informs, allows new things to come into being, and creates ease. And who couldn’t use just a little more ease in their life as we head round the bend into the future? If Springtime signifies rebirth as well as balance, it may be that balance is necessary for rebirth.

There are many things out of balance in our world, but none quite so long-standing and globally pervasive as the imbalance between masculine and feminine. Here at the Spring Equinox, the Greek Goddess of the Underworld, Persephone, returns to the light and brings back the flowers and greenery—and with them, food for the people and hope for the future. She’s had a long hard winter, birthing the souls of the dead back to life again and living under Hades rules.

So let’s give Her some room to distribute her magnificence. Let’s take time to smell the flowers and remember the miracle of spring. Let’s combat global warming with some chill space – less driving, less doing, less stuff. Let the feminine lead a little more in your life – your own feminine side, or the women in your life. You may be surprised that your life gets a little easier as corners turn to curves, hard edges to softness, and that dry job gets a little juicier.

If this yang civilization collapses, we won’t be able to go anywhere or do much of anything. The yin will then predominate, and we’ll be out of balance again in a different direction. So we may as well do it now, while the Divine Partnership that gives birth to all possibilities is still possible.

At birth all people are soft and yielding.

At death they are hard and stiff.

All green plants are tender and yielding.

At death they are brittle and dry.

When hard and rigid

We consort with death.

When soft and flexible,We affirm greater life.

Lao Tzu

Anodea Judith

March 24, 2011

Death and Rebirth: The Dark and the Light of Japan

Photo from Ashbury Park Press

Death and Rebirth:
The Dark and the Light of Japan

The crisis in Japan is of epic proportions. Like so many others, I sat transfixed by images of burning buildings, floating cars, and exploding reactors playing across the TV screen, my heart ripped open at the level of destruction and tragedy. How do people even begin to clean up something of such magnitude, let alone rebuild and heal from the trauma?

This is exactly the kind of disaster I write about in Waking the Global Heart – disasters that seem to be coming more frequently, like painful contractions in the birth process of humanity. (e.g. Katrina, Haiti earthquake, Gulf Oil Spill, floods in Pakistan, etc.) As terrible and awful as they are, we must also remember they contain an awakening to a new order. As ordeals of initiation, their extreme loss reveals gifts that were previously obscured: the gifts of community helping each other, the appreciation for simple things like food, warmth, and water, the experience of hearing quiet and seeing the stars, as this beautiful letter from a woman in Sendai expresses.

From Anne Thomas in Sendai, Japan where she has lived for the past decade teaching English.

Hello My Lovely Family and Friends,

First I want to thank you so very much for your concern for me. I am very touched. I also wish to apologize for a generic message to you all. But it seems the best way at the moment to get my message to you.

Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend's home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.

During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.

Utterly amazingly, where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."

Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often.

We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people have these things, others do not. No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.

There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun. People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time.

Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains of Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.

And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others. Last night my friend's husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed again.

Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an Enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don't. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that is much larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.

Thank you again for your care and Love of me,

With Love in return, to you all,

Anne

After the shock and pain, grief and loss, and the long hard clean up, there is something remarkable that I expect will come out of this. More than any other subculture on the planet, the Japanese are known for their quality, efficiency, elegance, and beauty in design. With whole towns and cities devastated, there is now opportunity to design and build from scratch, cities that are ecologically modern, more beautiful than before, that really serve their communities. Who better than the Japanese to take on that task? I predict that their new cities will be models for the world.

Commentator Fareed Zakaria said that the Japanese had prepared better than most for this kind of disaster and that indeed the deaths were fewer because of it. But they were economically unprepared as their country had fallen deeply into debt. Where will they get the money to rebuild? Yet rebuild they will, simply because they must. By necessity they will need to innovate socially and economically as well. And this too, will set a tone for the future. A means of working together out of necessity, more from the heart than from financial interest.

Also inspiring, in a devastated country of 128,000 people, there has not been one reported case of looting. The Japanese are being patient while standing in line for food, helping each other out as this report shows.

Destruction and creation are an inevitable pair. In the midst of the devastation, something new is being born. Evolutionary thinker, Barbara Marx Hubbard, noted on a call recently click here to access the recording. that if a woman went into childbirth without any idea of what was happening to her, she would surely think she was dying. Another woman, Ariel Spillsbury, said she felt that the tsunami was the waters breaking of humanity’s birth. There is much labor still to go, but we are birthing a new world.

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Anodea Judith

March 16, 2011

TO REALIZE IS TO SEE WITH REAL EYES

Photo from Photobucket

TO REALIZE IS TO SEE WITH REAL EYES

An amazing thing about consciousness is that once you really see something in a new way, you rarely go back to your old way of thinking. Think of those optical illusion pictures, like these:
 
Do you see both the old woman and the young woman in this black and white picture below?

Do you see the seated figures as well as the elder couple in this one?

Once you really get something, deep down in your bones, you can’t forget about it. You’re never quite the same and neither is the world around you.


We’re seeing this in the Middle East right now. Now that Tunisia and Egypt have broken the political “sound” barrier with successful uprisings, others are following suit. They’ve proved it’s possible, bringing hope to millions and sparking fires of liberation.

Two combined images from Anodea Judith's
Waking the Global Heart



In Madison, Wisconsin, the Capital Police refused to comply with the order to move out the protesters. How’s that for standing up to authority from those whose jobs are supposed to enforce it?

In Libya, some pilots chose to parachute to safety and crash their planes in the desert, rather than follow orders to drop bombs on their country. Once again, soldiers, trained to follow orders, choose to follow their conscience instead. They give a message to every other person that is blindly obedient or afraid to resist, that conscience has a power of its own. Story here.





A local pizza company in Wisconsin decided at 3:30 a.m. to give free pizzas to the demonstrators. It made the news and suddenly their business boomed as people all over the world ordered and paid for pizzas to be served, proving that generosity breeds abundance. See left the states and countries that ordered pizza. Go here and buy a pizza yourself.

Full story here.





It’s happening dear co-hearts. Once people see what’s possible, there is no stopping this wave of evolution toward freedom and democracy, no matter the cost. It may ebb and flow, but it won't stop. 

There’s a big difference between knowing about something and realizing it. You can know about the events of your childhood, but you might not realize the effects they had on you. I can know about poverty, or I can visit a village in India or a ghetto in New York, and realize what it’s actually like for people. Toward the realization of the gap between rich and poor, there’s a new TV show about millionaires going to live in poverty to see what it’s like, who then get moved to help out. Too bad there’s no TV in jail. Bernie Madoff could use this kind of entertainment.

Realization isn’t knowledge. It is full revelation, a total chakra experience, complete with feeling, seeing, understanding, and truly ”grokking” in your heart the full the implications in your heart.

We may know Monsanto produces genetically engineered foods, but we don’t realize the implications of the fact that there is a dangerous pathogen in GMO Alfalfa, yet the USDA approved it anyway. The article states:
“Researchers believe that this pathogen could be causing infertility in livestock and diseases in crops that could threaten the entire domestic food supply.” (Italics mine). This should be top news. Essential reading here.

That’s pretty scary, but here’s some good news:

Last night I saw a movie about one man’s realization that portrayed everything I’ve tried to say in WAKING THE GLOBAL HEART. The movie is called I AM and this was a preview showing with the director Tom Shadyac who was present to answer questions. (director of Ace Ventura, Bruce Almighty, The Nutty Professor, et al). After buying up multi-million dollar houses with his movie revenue, Shadyac had a “realization” of another way of being. He made this movie to show how people can move into the power of love. It’s funny, powerful, and inspiring and nobody's shooting anybody. Tell Hollywood we like these kinds of movies, by spreading the word to go see it. Ask for it in your local theatre. Trailer here. Show times here.

Once we see what’s possible, we can’t imagine how we lived with less. Miracles are happening everywhere. Times are changing fast and the new world is making itself right before our very real eyes. And that’s the many “I’s” that are coming together to form a far bigger and more powerful third “I” which is WE. And WE outnumber the dictators and wealth mongers exponentially. Once WE fully realize this amazing truth, everything begins to shift in a new direction.


Anodea Judith

March 1, 2011

Photo/Artwork by Will Zero

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