As the World Falls Apart

"You can't stop what's comin'. It ain't all waitin' on you. That's vanity."

-- Ellis in No Country for Old Men

I want to complete or expound upon a few thoughts, that have come up in the context of the Time Monks Oct. 7th forecast, and the current global situation as it is unfolding. Some of this is an attempt to clean up my thought process and clarify some of my previous commentary. I'll try to make it as coherent as possible.

For starters, I want to address the question of "choice," which was raised in this thread. The question also came up in the Coast to Coast interview, as discussed here. The Time Monks suggested that it was certainly possible to shift this outcome at the collective level. I agree, but I have to caveat, that at the point at which this broke wide, I thought the horses had already left the barn. It looks as if that estimation was correct, because we did, indeed, hit the tipping point on Oct. 7th.

But, this issue of choice is a very complex one, for me. Anyone who has worked with me, knows, that unlike many psychics, I don't speak in terms of fixed futures, or have attachment to the "accuracy" of predictions. On the contrary, I can actually watch futures shift during some readings, as clients grok the information presented. This is something tarot expert Rachel Pollack describes beautifully in one of her books. (I wish I could remember which one.) She posits that from the moment the cards are laid out, the future they predict has already shifted somewhat. That's because the subject of the reading now knows things they didn't before, and will inevitably take a few turns they would not have, without that information. But, another thing I've learned over years, as a reader, is that some futures are more fixed than others. Some of them are downright inevitable. We can choose, easily, to forgo a trip to the grocery store, because we gain some fore-knowledge that the traffic will be horrendous. But, it becomes far more difficult to shift some of the big life lessons that may be headed our way, even when we can see clearly, that they will be uncomfortable. There are choices that we make at a level of consciousness that operates far beyond that simple, decision-making process. This becomes even more complicated when we start talking about collective agreements, but I'll get to that in a moment.

I think the best way to clarify this is by example, and I'll use one from my own life. Years ago I interviewed for a job at Penguin Books. How to put this gently... I did not want this job. The division I would be going into had a terrible reputation. I knew people who had left there emotionally scarred. But, my headhunter wanted me to, at least, give it a shot, so I showed up for the interview. When I interviewed with my potential, direct supervisor, I adored her on sight. We just clicked. But, I still did not want the job, because I knew that her boss, and her boss's boss, and her boss's boss's boss, were all execrable. Leaving that first set of interviews, and knowing full well that I did not want to work there, I felt my energy connect to the building. I tried to deny, to myself, that it was happening. But, I could feel it. In my gut, I knew the decision had been made and I would be working there. After that, came a second interview, and a job offer. I wanted to turn it down, but neither my financial circumstances, nor my gut, would let me. I knew that, like it or not, I was supposed to work there and I knew it would be for about two years. They were two years of hell.

It was the most tense environment I had ever worked in. I was as stoical as humanly possible, but, the emotional stress was nearly intolerable. My physical health suffered. I was miserable. I kept asking spirit, can I go yet? And, the answer, over and over was, "No." If it had been up to me, on a strictly individual, ego level, I would have hit the door and never looked back, after about three months. But it wasn't until I'd been there for over a year that I understood why it was so crucial that I be there. No, it wasn't about the money. It's never that simple. After one particularly brutal day; a day in which an insanely dramatic scene between my boss and her boss played out in front of me, it began to come clear. I was witnessing a pattern that had played out in my family numerous times, when I was growing up. Forced to the surface, was some very unhealed trauma from my childhood, so that I could have the opportunity to, as they say, "trace it, face it, and erase it." There were many other levels to the healing I was able to accomplish in my time at that job, and one day, spirit said, now get the hell out of here, and I resigned.

So, a couple of things I want to underscore. Firstly, there are "choices" we make at whole other levels of consciousness; levels that, if we're lucky, we may be able to just glimpse. They are things we call into our life experience at a spiritual level, way beyond our mental conceptions. They are often things we do not "want." At the level of conscious understanding, they are often completely inscrutable.

Secondly, this is why I hate "The Secret." Okay... that came out like a verbal tick. And, let me caveat this a little. When I talk about "The Secret" and "new thought," in this context, I'm not necessarily talking about the "Science of Mind" or any other deep, thorough study of those concepts. I've never felt pulled to that modality, so I can't speak to what comprehensive study of these principles may render. I'm talking specifically about the facile approaches put forth in "The Secret" and similar poppy, "new age" ideology. I discussed this pretty thoroughly in this diary. I don't need to retread that material. I just want to clarify that some things that we want or don't want at an ego level are beyond our conscious control, and for good reason. Trying to micromanage our lives on that level, and avoiding everything that's the teensiest bit uncomfortable, is a) impossible, and b) would stunt our growth, if we could really control it. It is also not nearly as simple as controlling your "thoughts." Thoughts are really one small, ego-identified part of our greater consciousness. And, they're not the part of us that we should really want calling the shots for our lives.

The reason I am impressed by the method the Time Monks have devised, is that they appear to be looking at that unconscious level, beyond simple ego-identity. They're also looking at what is resulting from our collective agreements. Collective agreements are pretty well invisible to the naked eye, but nothing occurs in this world that we don't agree to at a collective level. What this means, in real terms, is that we all agreed to experience the horror of 9/11, to be governed by an unelected President, to the devastation of Katrina, etc., etc., etc. Whatever our conscious thoughts about those things, however much we may not want them, they served the greater purpose of moving the whole forward in a very necessary spiritual growth process.

So it is with our current fiscal collapse. At least, as per Karen Bishop in her August 16 posting of last year. While she allowed that it could change, if we collectively made that choice, she also said:

The fall is necessary. If we were to try and “save” these areas of lower vibrating reality, we would only be hindering the process and necessary stage of the fall. So then, this is why the US is readying for its great fall. It is necessary. In a strange way, this is a great and wonderful thing. All is in divine and perfect order.

And so, here we are. Some of it may have shifted in subtle ways, since she made that prediction, but the broad strokes are clearly playing out. There is a higher purpose to what is occurring and we have considered it at the collective level, for some time, and sourced this reality. The Time Monks say this eventuality had been coming up in their data for some years. And they talk about how, in making their forecasts, they lose "granularity" at about 19 months. This makes perfect sense to me, because there is so much fluctuation in all futures, including our shared, collective ones.

Bishop also advises lightworkers to remove themselves from the chaos and stay "in the light," so to speak. I'm of mixed mind on this. I tend to think she's right about a lot of us being sheltered and protected, so that we can do what we came here to do. I also think it's very easy to read that text, fall into polarized thinking, and go into total denial. I addressed some of this in the comments on this thread, where I said the following:

I'm not a big fan of blocking things out. This is the problem I have whenever I hear people saying, "Don't buy into the fear. Turn off the television." I have to ask, if seeing what is objectively occurring makes you want to run from it, aren't you being totally controlled by fear? I'm not a Buddhist, but I know this much about Buddhism. It's not really about shutting emotions off, although, it seems a lot of Buddhists try to do it this way. It's about moving past emotion, detaching completely from happy and sad and moving into a place of serenity. This is what enlightenment means -- in Buddhism, in Hindu, in many other contexts -- that we wake up in the dream and realize that it's all illusion. All of it. Not just the parts we don't like.

I don't think we need to buy into the drama and panic, but I don't know if it serves us when we talk about avoiding all the "negativity," which is just one example of what I've been reading around the web. Our concept of negativity is subjective. I don't think the events that are playing out on the world stage are "negative," per say. As discussed, they are actually the means by which our collective growth and healing are playing out. But, we will need to protect ourselves from the toxicity that is no longer appropriate to our process. We will need to "detach with love" from a good deal of this.

I think it's somewhat analogous to a recovering member of a very dysfunctional family. To quote Stuart Smalley on visiting his family, "Next time, I'll stay in a hotel." We will absolutely need to create our own space and buffer zones against the insanity. Hell. I've been doing that for years. But we also can't pretend that what is unfolding is entirely separate from us. If we are seeing it. If it is manifesting in our reflective reality at all, it does exist to, at least, some small degree within us. Else, we would not feel triggered by it. And, it is important to both our individual healing, as well as that of the whole, that we continue to address those issues as they arise within us.

I say all this knowing full well how glib it sounds, even now. What unfolds may be horrific, and the more surreal it becomes, the more I may want to retreat to a cave at the top of a very high mountain, where my family and I will live on nuts and berries. Don't laugh. Could happen. And my husband has done the course work to make that possible.

I can't say, now, how all this will play out. I've had glimpses of a future so magical, I have no idea how to put it into words. And, as they say, we shall see...