Where are we now?

Trigger warning: doom, Doom, DOOM!

We are on the edge, my friends! The brink, the cusp, the very precipice! The whispery touch of a butterfly’s wing could send us plummeting. We are poised for a “phase change,” when everyone discovers — all at once and all together — that the world is not as it seems.

Imagine that aliens show up tomorrow, or Jesus returns to judge the wicked, or some old god we’ve never seen before rises up out of the sea like Godzilla with a fiery crown. It would be a revelation! We would suddenly be reminded that there are powers in the Earth of which we are unaware and which can overwhelm us in the blink of an eye. The centrality of the human intellect and the human will would be revealed as fiction, and our perspective would change, instantly and forever.

As it turns out, events of such magnitude could happen, quite soon, without the need for any extraterrestrial or supernatural intervention. For example:

• If the AMOC (a big ocean current) shuts down (as it shows signs of doing), Europe is gone in a year or two. The “Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation” brings heat from the tropics to the poles, and if it stops Europe will lose up to 8℃ of warmth, making agriculture impossible.

• Or, if the macho men in charge of our various wars decide to push things a little too far, we could have fireballs over major cities, next week.

• Or, the mysterious something that’s driving ocean temperatures to unheard-of heights could really cut loose, and suddenly you can’t live anywhere because it’s too hot.

• Or, the new plague (the one with the 50% fatality rate) could go fully human-to-human, making COVID (with a 2% fatality rate) seem like a picnic in the park.

• And of course we have the decrepit orange antichrist on the campaign trail to take power in the U.S., so he can turn over the mechanisms of government to monotheist patriarchal fascist control-freaks, who will ruin everything.

Events like these, flowing naturally from what we call “history,” could cause a dislocation as impressive as that of any god’s intervention.

So what happens when everyone is suddenly jolted awake by some extraordinary event that blows up the illusion that humans are in control? Well, there’s bad and there’s good.

Bad

For the most part, I think we can expect people to (in professional language) “freak the fuck out.” People will look to the authorities for help, but the authorities will be overwhelmed, distracted by their own problems, or unconcerned with the plight of regular people. The governments of the world will declare a “state of emergency,” but unlike previous states of emergency, this one will last forever, or until there are no more humans to be alarmed.

The lines will be drawn. People who are in the safe zones (if any such exist) will close the doors, batten the hatches, lock down the borders, and start counting their inventory of water, food, medicine, and weapons. Anyone caught outside the zone of safety will be written off as a loss (with the observation that “they probably deserved it”).

Over time, the safe zones will grow smaller and smaller, and the inventories will shrink. Finally, only the strongest and most brutal will survive, and that’s who will be the foundation for the next generation of humans. Oh, the joy of natural selection!

But actually I don’t think humans are on the roster of species who will survive. We’re too complex and too fragile. Just the “must be with mother for two years after birth” thing is pretty much disqualifying. No, the species remaining after the dislocating event are the ones who are simple and small, taking energy directly from their environment and with a high tolerance for toxins and radiation. It will be interesting to see what they evolve into, in a few million years.

Good

On the other hand, it will be good for everyone to be forcefully reminded that the world is not as it seems. Our spirits are barnacled with heavy layers of illusion, ignorance, and evil which must be removed by any means necessary. If it takes an apocalypse to do it, well, that’s just a testimony to how badly we are immersed in trickery and falsehood.

Clarity is what we seek: an unobstructed view into the heart of being. Fortunately, our individual self is the same as the Universal Self, so we’re looking nearby. Can you see your own heart? Only if you’re very, very still.

Weirdly, though, stillness does not mean inactivity. It means acting in accordance with the flow of what surrounds and sustains you, so that you cause no turbulence. The river may be flowing at a million miles an hour, but if you are floating with perfect ease, you are carried along without disturbance.

In the context of worldly disaster, I suppose this means to be who you are to the maximum extent possible, and do no harm. I’ve come to believe that we cannot see directly into the celestial center, but rather we must look through the medium of our individual self — our body, mind, and history. The ultimate divine is not directly observable; it is through the kaleidoscopic diversity of manifestation that the Universal One knows itself.

And that’s you! So do what you do in perfect clarity, and let the river carry you home.

---

---

Photo by Charles Knowles.