Original post from 27.2.21
How does change occur on a collective, cultural level? And how can I best contribute? Should I work at a systemic level? Work on myself on a personal level?
Last week, I wrote “We live the world into being.” We participate in creating our world by how we live.
The idea of morphogenetic fields – the idea that when something new appears in the world, or a new ability is acquired, or a new perception bursts forth, its very existence creates a “field” that makes it easier for it to spread, even in distant places and without any causal link of heredity or communication – feels right to me , at least metaphorically. The story “The Hundredth Monkey” illustrates the principle, like an invention or discovery that appears simultaneously in different places when the technological, scientific, or philosophical infrastructure matures.
As someone who has spent a lot of my life either doing or longing for things that have since become available and accepted (for example, in the 80’s when I thought that Tel Aviv was a perfect city for bicycles and this was my main means of transportation, most people thought I was crazy to ride a bicycle in Tel Aviv!) I sometimes thought that maybe my role is to be a morphogenesist – sowing patterns in reality to make it easier for them to manifest.
I also see reality as fractal, made of layers upon layers of various scales, patterns always repeating with slight changes, in infinite detail, no matter how far we zoom in or out. A reality in which everything done or experienced resonates in other places, at all levels, so that every change affects everyone and everything. I remind myself of this when I find myself in periods of small and quiet doing, within my family or another small circle. In a fractal world, “bigger” or “smaller” lose their meaning. Every place or action has the same complexity and importance. Everyone has an impact, at every level we operate. “As above, so below” – and as below, so above. And the whole that emerges is so much more than we can imagine, and certainly more than we can know.
And yet, we still often come to the question, “What should I do now? What is my part?” I like the three steps of change that Charles Eisenstein suggests:
- Receive a vision. A deeply resonant direction is not something we invent or plan on our own, but something that emerges from the combination of our being and the living world that calls to us. Even when we doubt the possibility that the vision is showing or our ability to implement it, we feel the call.
- Heal the wounds that the vision reveals..
- Surrender to what wants to be born.
Although I have presented successive steps here, the process is often circular – receiving a vision raises doubts and reveals wounds, healing enables dedication, through action the vision is clarified, progress raises additional wounds to heal, and so on. It may be necessary to start from step 2, to heal the wounds and doubts that prevent us from having a vision in the first place, or to surrender to not knowing, to what will come and what happens along the way.
So how does one receive a vision? Asking for it is a good start. Not once, but coming back and asking again and again. Pat McCabe explains beautifully in just two minutes. We are not alone, we don’t have to make it up. We are part of the world, the biosphere, living Gaia; she is with us and for us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-nYaK4icUg
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