Monday, December 17, 2012

12/18/12—Contemplating The End Of All Life As We Know It

Today's Draw: The Tower from the Morgan Greer. How do you think humanity will end? When do you think this will happen? And, on a scale of 1 to 100, how much anxiety do you have over 12/21/12?

Today I cheated. I didn't randomly choose this card. I chose it on purpose because I wanted to say a few things about 12/21/12. 

Unless you've been living under a pickle barrel, you probably know that this is the date that the Mayan calendar ends. It's otherwise known as "this coming Friday". And people have interpreted it as the day the world ends, the day the world changes and, I'm sure, the day the world feels foolish for believing it was anything other than just plain, old Friday. 

The interesting thing is that the closer it gets, the less people seem to be talking about it. I'm not sure why that is, but it's probably because people are focused on just getting through today, as usual. And with the holidays on top of that, the date is not top of mind. 

I do believe something is happening in the world. I believe we're polarizing on a number of different poles. There are the warmongers and the peaceniks. The religious right and the "spiritually creative". The conscious and the unconscious. The poles go on and on. 

Of the above, I consider myself a conscious, spiritually creative peacenik. And I feel threatened by those at the other end of the poles, because they don't have my interests at heart. I think that's natural. I see that they feel threatened by me, too. Anyone who has diametrically opposed views to your own is a threat to causing a tower moment in your life...a moment where your world comes crashing down around you. 

We build towers and walls and structures to keep outside forces at bay. We do it out of an illusion of control. I call it an illusion because we think can and do have control over our lives, but we don't. If Iran has nukes, we might all be living in a different world tomorrow. We don't have control. Nor do they have control over the hell that will rain down upon them if they ever use the nukes. We can't control soccer moms from driving high on Ritalin, or telemarketers from calling or young men from mowing down a classroom of first graders. 

Sometimes life feels like a mine field that we walk through each day, just trying to do the least amount of damage. I'm not really sure at what I'm getting at here...haha. But regardless of what 12/21/12 is all about, we have no control over it. But what we might be able to do for ourselves and for millions of years of humanity henceforth, is to be more tolerable. Be kind to those who do not have our interests at heart. To open our hearts to them anyway. To see them as more than just someone sitting on the opposite side of the pole from you. 

There are some things that are universal enough to be considered universal. One is that we all want to know we matter. We all want to feel special in some way. We all want to be heard. We all want to be able to do the best for ourselves, even if we get in our own way doing it. We all want our families to be safe. We all have struggles. We all want a chance and a second chance. We all have shortcomings. We all want to be loved and accepted anyway. 

If we can remember that and connect with others from that point of commonality, we could make a difference. There will always be "bad guys". We will find that this young man in CT had a mental illness, just as is true about most mass murderers and serial killers. There will always be people with mental illness. We can't control them. We can help them, but we can't keep towers from being knocked down. There will always be those who slip through the cracks. 

Maybe I'm too idealistic, but I do believe we can raise the energy of mankind through tolerance and opening our hearts and minds to others. Will the guy at the other end of the pole follow suit? Maybe. Maybe he needs to be shown how. Maybe he needs to see it a hundred times before he tries himself. But that doesn't mean those of us who are capable of putting our need to control aside shouldn't do it. It's precisely why we should. 

Anyway, a lot of people think that this realization is what 12/21/12 is all about...entering a new era of consciousness. I believe it, but more than I believe it, I hope for it. When you compare us to the dinosaurs, we haven't been here very long. We've existed less than half a percent as long as they did. They were here 150-200 million years. When you absorb that and see what a state we've gotten ourselves into, you can see how man's "superiority" is really just putting us on a fast-track to extinction. I really don't think we can live another 150 million years treating each other the way we do. 

There was a lot of good response about yesterday's call for kindness. This is really just another plea, worded differently. I believe myself and the people who read this blog are among those are called to lead the way. And that means really thinking about the way we carry ourselves through the world. It means choosing peace over choosing the need to be right. 

Oh, and in answer to my own question, I'm going to put my anxiety over 12/21/12 at 15. I don't really believe it will be the end of the world or the end of life as we know it. But it is a little creepy that such a wise and advanced race ended the calendar on that date. And you just really never know. That said, I'm making plans for the weekend and I imagine Friday will be well under way before I think about what day it is. :)

2 comments:

  1. So beautifully put, Tierney. Thank you for your thoughts and insights on this 'impending doom'.....lol.
    I share your hope about this upcoming time to be one of a new global/human consciousness, in a way. I have been feeling in subtle and not so subtle ways for the past month or so that things are shifting, and it's raised a bit of havoc with my body. I feel that there is a real movement of energies going on.
    Do I think that this is the end of the world? No way. Do I think that something's coming that may change our world and our perceptions of ourselves as humans on this earth? Yes.
    Just my two cents, for what it's worth. Stay open, friends, stay open.

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  2. Thanks, Meg! And I agree...stay open. :)

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