April 2009: This ‘Crisis’ can be a Good thing.
Did you know that the Chinese symbol for crisis also means opportunity, or a crucial point when something begins or changes?
When I went to write this month’s Monthly Visions I struggled for a few minutes, wondering how to approach the topic of this month in the most sensitive manner possible. I know many people are going through a hard time right now, yet I also know there is potential here for personal and global transformation unlike anything we have seen before. I think the opening sentence captures what I want to say perfectly.
I have always had a vision of these times, ever since I was a little girl. I remember looking around and wondering why the reality I saw around me – of people going to jobs they hated, countries at war with each other, companies polluting the Earth and getting away with it – was so readily accepted. I was particularly confused by the visions I saw of a completely different world, one in which we all lived in harmony with each other and with our planet. One in which people did what they loved to do every day, and created all the abundance they needed. A world in which we honoured creativity, diversity and peace.
For a long time I didn’t know whether these visions were memories of a past life, or premonitions of a future way of being. As I got older my knowing strengthened, and I knew (without knowing how I knew) that it was the latter. We were here, this time, this life, to create a new Earth, with new ways of being. I knew this with every bone in my body, and couldn’t be convinced otherwise. When people said to me “Not in this lifetime” I replied “Yes in this lifetime. Look around. Our environment, our political and corporate structures, our media, our humanity, cannot keep going the way we are going. They are not sustainable. We either have to change or it will all eventually collapse.” Again people argued that yes this change might happen, but not in our lifetime. Again I argued, “It has to be in our lifetime. The world cannot sustain this for too many more years.”
During my 20’s I came across the Mayan and Hopi prophecies about 2012 and they matched everything I knew without knowing how I knew. The prophecies speak of ‘the end of times’ when one cycle ends in preparation for another. Death and rebirth is a natural occurrence, we experience it every year with a new year, we experience it as we change jobs and relationships. It is not a bad thing, it is a positive thing. The only scary thing about change, usually, is the outcome is often unknown and as humans we have a fear of the unknown. So we tend to cling to our old realities for dear life, even if we have outgrown them, even if we know they are no longer good for us or healthy for us or serving us, even if we know the new is probably better, still we resist, still we are afraid: what if I let go and there is nothing there waiting for me?
No-one knows for sure what this new cycle will bring, but my feeling is this: that we are coming to a turning point, a fork in the road. We either keep going the way we have been, clinging to unsustainable forms of living, treating the Earth and our fellow inhabitants in the worst possible ways just to keep our unsustainable economic systems standing, and thus eventually cause the collapse of everything around us. Or, we change. We create new ways of being, we start treating the Earth and our fellow humans in a respectful way, we create new economic systems built on strong, ethical, socially and environmentally conscious foundations. We need systems that help raise people up, not keep them crushed down. In short, we need to move from a way of being that must look to more evolved planets like insanity, to a way of being that is worthy of who we all really are as individuals.
I think the date 2012 was given to us as a gift, so that when the time came we would know what was going on. So that we knew, okay this is not a time to panic, it is a time to get to work. It is not a time to cry and blame and get angry and try to desperately fix the falling old reality. It is a time to get up and get passionate and stick up your hand to say “Yes, I am ready to help build the new reality! Where do I start?”
Everywhere you look you see change now. Yet the kind of change you see will depend on your perspective. If you are fixated on the old reality, yes you will see chaos and people losing jobs and a media that tells you second by second how bad things are. Yet if your eyes are pinned on the new reality emerging, you will see people awakening, humanity becoming more and more conscious every day, a growing urgency to take care of the environment, an increasing intolerance for war as a way to solve problems, and thousands of positive media channels and teachers that are there to inspire you to step into your best self and create your best life.
You will see stories like the one I saw on television recently about the former banker who now drives a taxi cab in New York and LOVES it – he says it’s way more fun and less stressful than his former job. He feels relieved and released by his retrenchment, and he’s still making good money. You will read stories like the one I read in a magazine about a woman who lost her home due to foreclosure and is now so happy in her new home that she is renting for way less money a month. She was able to get something bigger with a huge backyard for her children, in a better location, without the stress of a high mortgage. She feels free and secure, and is able to relax into spending more time with her kids. Yes, it is only perspective that turns crisis into opportunity.
People are worried because these times are so turbulent. Guess what? They were never meant to be smooth! You cannot cross from one reality to another without a few waves. Our Earth and humanity is in the process of labour, birthing a new world. Ask any woman who has had a baby what this feels like! Yet those of us in the Western world aren’t taught to honour natural cycles like birth, death and rebirth. We get scared of them, and try to stop them or turn them into medical events. We call them ‘crises’ and we forget they are opportunities.
Have you ever renovated your house or even done a huge garage or attic clean up? What happens as you go from one step to the other? As you demolish your kitchen to put in a new one? As you throw out old, useless things to create a brand new light-filled space? Mess? Frustration? Yes! But when you’re done, wow, doesn’t it look great! Change isn’t always pretty, but that doesn’t mean it’s a negative thing. Quite to the contrary, it can be and usually is a good thing.
I have just spent some time in Guatemala and while there I was fortunate enough to participate in a Mayan Equinox Ceremony conducted by Mayan elder and priest Don Rigoberto. It was an amazing day organised by Spiritual Archeologist and author of Mayan Astrology Aluna Joy Yaxk’in who was down there with one of her regular tours (go to www.alunajoy.com for more info). I asked Don Rigoberto what the Maya had to say about the changing times and 2012. Don Rigoberto feels that all the indigenous nations need to come together with their various prophecies, so that we can get a more fuller understanding of what we might expect from these times. He agreed that the degree to which humanity can wake up in time, and the greater we all increase our levels of consciousness, will determine the way in which we move through our passage, (with grace or resistance) and what kind of reality awaits us on the other side. Don Rigoberto said that the best thing we can do is keep on our spiritual path through meditation, prayer and always doing things from the heart.
So, keep your eyes focused on where you want to go, on how you want your personal, and our collective, reality to look. Look at things from a different perspective, seeing the opportunity, seeing the positive. Above all, know that this change is a good thing. It’s not an easy process, but one way or other with grace we will get through it, and we will be something different, something better.
(c) Dana Mrkich 2009
Dana Mrkich is a spiritual intuitive, inspirational writer, radio host, author of A New Chapter (Zeus Publications), and creator/teacher of Walking the Rainbow Path, an online chakra course. She offers Soul Sessions via email and Skype to clients all around the world, containing the guidance and healing insights you most need at this time as you step further into your true self and new reality. Subscribe to Dana's Monthly Newsletter Visioning the Dream Awake for Monthly Visions, articles, interviews, courses and more or please visit: www.danamrkich.com
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